Republicans already have tremendous power in America. They have appointed six of the nine current Supreme Court justices. They have more state trifectas (control of both legislative houses, as well as the governor’s seat) than Democrats. And by 2023 they will also control the House of Representatives.
But there is a hollowness at the core of the modern GOP. It is difficult to identify a clear party leader, a coherent policy agenda or a coordinated election strategy. The party did not bother to put forward a policy platform before the 2020 elections or formulate an alternative policy vision in 2022. She barely took into account her underperformance in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections. At this point, it is unclear whether there is any real party structure – or substrate of ideas – left at all.
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All of this begs the question: What exactly is the Republican Party right now? What does it believe? What does it want to achieve? Whose example does it follow? Those questions will have to be answered one way or another over the next two years as Republican politicians compete for their party’s nomination for the 2024 presidential election and members of the Republican House wield the power of their new majority.
Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review and a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. We disagree on a lot, but I think he’s one of the sharpest observers of the Republican Party today. So I invited him onto the show for a tentative talk about the chaotic state of the current GOP and the choices it will have to make over the next two years.
We discuss how the party handles the 2022 midterm elections, why Dougherty thinks Donald Trump has a very good chance of winning the Republican nomination again in 2024, whether the GOP leadership understands its own voters, how Ron DeSantis became one of the party leaders. leading contenders for 2024, whether DeSantis — and the GOP more broadly — actually have an economic agenda right now, why Trump’s greatest strength in 2024 could be the economy he led in 2018 and 2019, why Dougherty doesn’t think Trump’s political appeal is transferable to anyone else in the Republican Party, what kind of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy might be, which Republicans — other than Trump and DeSantis — to watch out for, and more.
You can listen to our entire conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show.” Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts from. View a list of book tips from our guests here.
(A full transcript of the episode will be available at noon on the Times website.)
“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker, and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Money. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta.