Rogue Elephant: The Republican Party Since Reagan

A crucial explanation of the Republican party’s increasing radicalization over the past fifty years

Rogue Elephant traces the radicalization of the Republican Party over the past fifty years, arguing that its subordination to Donald Trump was not an anomaly, but rather the culmination of processes at work for decades. Providing a new perspective on figures from Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush to the Koch brothers and Donald Trump, it shows that the party’s lurch to the far right was the pro-duct of a volatile mix of a disorganized party structure and a divided and fractious class of American business owners.

These forces have propelled ever more reactionary leaders to the front of the party, setting up cycles where the insurgents of one period become the party establishment of the next, and find themselves con­fronted with a new batch of insurgents even farther to the right. The result is that a party once seen as the handmaiden of American business has increasingly come into conflict with business groups like the Chamber of Commerce. Considering the implications of these dynamics for American democracy, Paul Heideman warns that there may be no going back to normal for the Republican Party without a much broader transformation of American society.

Paul Heideman holds a PhD in American Studies from Rutgers University-Newark. His work has appeared in publications such as Jacobin, Dissent, and In These Times. He works as a history teacher in New York City.