R.I.P GOP: A Talk by Stanley Greenberg

By Jacqueline Jedrych

Stanley Greenberg, polling advisor to Bill Clinton and Al Gore, founder of democracycorps.com, as well as author of eight political nonfiction books, was hosted by the CUA College Democrats this Tuesday. He was invited by Dr. John White, a Politics professor at CUA. Around 30 people came to the Columbus Law School to hear him discuss his latest book, R.I.P GOP, which analyses how President Donald Trump won in 2016 and his opinion on what the future holds for the Republican Party. 

“I’m so pleased to be talking here at a huge, transformative political moment in the country,” Greenberg said. “It’s not over— everything’s accelerating.”

Trump, Greenberg posits, is the single biggest factor in the downfall of the Republican Party as we know it. 

“I think Trump accelerated the trends that were going to destroy him,” Greenberg said. 

After attending the Women’s March in January 2017, Greenberg reflected on the state of the presidency. He saw the trend in himself and other Trump condemners of participating more in activism rather than allowing their worries to overtake their future. 

“They thought I decided to write a book because of the resistance, most of them were painfully uncertain of how it would turn out. I wrote it because of the opposite. I believe Donald Trump’s victory is the last desperate attempt of a Tea Party-dominated America to control, and I believe they will fail.”

All of Greenberg’s books have two main pieces of advice for both Republicans and Democrats: do not lose touch with the working class, and do not forget that there is  corruption that links corporations and politicians.

“Big money makes it really hard for people to believe that the government will work for the middle class,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg also wrote about the demographic changes in recent history. He said  Hilary Clinton believed that since Trump was offending rising demographic groups, he would not get their vote. However, Clinton failed to predict the lack of voter turnout against him. Greenberg also claimed that the Clinton campaign was offensively anti-worker. He did not foresee the Republican nominee being Trump; he saw a large Evangelical base for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas. 

“I thought Cruz would be the nominee,” Greenberg said. “I thought Trump would be strong, I did not think he would go away, the Tea Party base, the Anti-Government base would be strong for him, but I thought the religious base would dominate for Cruz.” 

Greenberg also believes that the election of U.S. President Barack Obama in 2008 caused a Tea Party revolt, due to what Greenberg claims was a “suffocating” decade they had just endured. The Republican Evangelical bloc collated with the Tea Party bloc to claim a large, but insecure, voter base for Trump. 

“When people wonder why he was only governing for the Evangelicals and Tea Party,” Greenberg said, “it’s because he has driven away other members.” 

Greenberg saw the huge turnout for the midterm, highest for an off-year election since World War I, as a sign of the American people’s distaste for Trump. His polling information shows an increase in acceptance of immigrants, a widening gap between Democratic disapproval of Trump and Republican approval of him, and an uncharacteristically high level of interest in politics.

“Two-thirds of the country, as they’re watching things escalate on immigrants, are embracing immigrants,” Greenberg said. 

He sees this information as an inverse reaction to the policies Trump has instituted. Greenberg believes that the snap away from Trump’s hyper-conservative, anti-immigrant views will be so intense that it will ultimately lead to the demise of the Republican Party as we know it, that it can never really look the same.  

“I believe we are heading towards an election where the Republican Party is not relevant,” concluded Greenberg.