Donald Trump and the Republican Party: The Making of a Faustian Bargain

Abstract

Donald Trump’s presidency is likely to become what Stephen Skowronek once labeled as a “disjunctive presidency.” Trump’s election in 2016 and the issue positions he has taken mark the end of the Reagan Era. Just as Jimmy Carter’s one-term signaled the end of the New Deal era begun by Franklin D. Roosevelt, so, too, does Trump’s already troubled presidency signify the end of Reagan’s conservatism. Changing demographics have hastened the end of the Reagan era, and the next presidential contest is likely to be one that James David Barber called a “politics as conscience,” not a conflict election to which Trump was well-suited. Trump’s victory, along with the end of the Reagan era, also signals a moment of significant danger for the Republican Party, despite the present unified GOP control of the federal government and recent gains that the party has made at the state and local levels.