Postscript: Trump, Trumpism, and the Future of the GOP

As the impeachment trial ends, Lilly Goren and Susan Liebell explore the future of the GOP with two media-savvy political scientists. Dr. Jonathan Bernstein is familiar to many as the Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy -- also doing Bloomberg television and radio. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and his most recent book is The Making of the Presidential Candidates (Roman & Littlefield 2020 -- Lilly interviewed him and his co-editor, Casey Dominguez, for the New Books in Political Science). Dr. Christopher Galdieri, Associate Professor at Saint Anselm College is the author of Stranger in a Strange State: The Politics of Carpetbagging from RFK to Scott Brown (SUNY Press, 2019 -- and Lilly interviewed him for New Books in Political Science) as well as Donald Trump & New Hampshire Politics (Palgrave, 2019). He often does interviews for CBC news, AP Radio, and others.

In this spirited conversation, we interrogate the consequences of Trump and Trumpism for the Republican Party, the success of the Trump presidency in terms of policy and party politics, the level of dysfunctionality in the Republican Party, the tension between what is good for the party and what is good for individual office holders, and the ultimate effect on the American political system. The conversation dives into Trump’s second impeachment and the role of the GOP in both the House and the Senate around this most recent impeachment and trial. Galdieri and Bernstein also discuss the presidential nominating process over the past few decades, focusing on more recent nomination cycles and how these processes, and the functioning of both the Democratic and Republican parties, shape the outcomes and the winners.

Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj.

Susan Liebell is an associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Why Diehard Originalists Aren’t Really Originalists recently appeared in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and “Retreat from the Rule of Law: Locke and the Perils of Stand Your Ground” was published in the Journal of Politics (July 2020). Email her comments at sliebell@sju.edu or tweet to @SusanLiebell.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices