GOP

21st century

Right-wing populism became an increasingly dominant ideological faction within the GOP throughout the 2010s and helped lead to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Starting in the 1970s and accelerating in the 2000s, American right-wing interest groups invested heavily in external mobilization vehicles that led to the organizational weakening of the GOP establishment. The outsized role of conservative media, in particular Fox News, led to it being followed and trusted more by the Republican base over traditional party elites. The depletion of organizational capacity partly led to Trump's victory in the Republican primaries against the wishes of a very weak party establishment and traditional power brokers. Trump's election exacerbated internal schisms within the GOP, and saw the GOP move from a center coalition of moderates and conservatives to a solidly right-wing party hostile to liberal views and any deviations from the party line.