The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has conceded that the GOP is now the party of Donald Trump.
Trump has seized the lead in the Republican presidential race with a populist campaign premised on border security, immigration controls, protectionist trade policies, and closure of corporate tax loopholes to finance massive tax cuts for the poor and middle class.
Trump received the endorsement Tuesday of former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who became a leading populist tea party figure after running alongside establishment pick John McCain in 2008.
“Even with a record number of candidates and internal calls to become more inclusive as a party, Donald Trump and Sarah Palin remain two of the GOP’s most influential leaders,” said DNC spokesman Mark Paustenbach after the Palin endorsement at a rally in Iowa.
“Their divisive rhetoric is now peddled by everyone from Ted Cruz to Marco Rubio. Americans deserve better than what Trump and Palin have to offer, but it seems like the other Republican candidates would rather follow in their footsteps,” Paustenbach added.
That the GOP is now Trump’s party represents a victory for populist conservatives who have been longing for reform in the party since Pat Buchanan’s insurgent primary campaign against establishment figurehead George Bush in the 1992 election.
The paleoconservative American Conservative magazine has been more favorable to Trump’s populist campaign, though most mainstream media outlets, and network anchors, and talk show hosts have tried to shut down Trump’s revolutionary campaign on behalf of their corporate masters.
Despite liberal and also Republican-establishment rhetoric about Trump’s supposedly changing positions, Trump has actually been extremely consistent in his economic views since the 1980s, when he supported Bush for president in the 1988 election. Trump railed in the 1980s against trade policies that favored Japan and “ripped off” the United States.