At this point, there is a lot of uncertainty about what the post-Trump Republican coalition will look like moving forward. It’s possible that the GOP is now completely dominated by one individual, as evidenced by the purge of those who pushed back on the 45th president’s fraudulent claims that the election was stolen from him. But there are still other voices in the party, including some that have pushed back on some aspects of Trumpism.
In fact, if the largest group of Republicans prove to be that which seeks to reinterpret Trumpism in some way, it’s possible it’ll end up wielding a lot of influence in the party. The key question here is whether these Republicans can carve out their own political identities while still drawing on the past president, as Trump and Trumpism now define the the party’s factions. This is a common dilemma for politicians after an influential presidency. And it still remains to be seen whether Trumpism is open to reinterpretation by others, or whether, as is often the case in highly personal political movements, the ideology proves impossible to separate from the leader.
In 2021, political scientist Hans Noel wrote that Republicans could “agree to disagree about democracy,” citing the need for parties to form broad coalitions in the U.S. political system and the many historical examples of such coalitions exiting despite deep differences within them. But disagreeing over the basic tenets of democracy might prove too much of an intra-party fissure for Republicans to overcome to form a coalition.
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