The zombification of political parties
in what political theorist Nancy Rosenblum calls a democratic “regulated rivalry,” Trump denied her any standing in the party. “She’s essentially a Democrat,” he said. “I think she should probably switch parties.” Never mind that Trump himself appointed Haley as the US ambassador to the United Nations during his term as president.
Equally telling, the Republican Party no longer even bothers to offer anything like a proper campaign program. Before the 2020 election, it simply reissued its 2016 program and pledged total fealty to Trump. A party with a real program can bear an election loss and simply redouble its efforts to bring voters over to its side the next time. It would have a much longer time horizon, rather than adopting the short-term perspective of an individual – a change that makes every loss seem existential.
Some politicians deal with this challenge by installing relatives as successors, thus turning a party into a quasidynasty or a political family business. That is what the Gandhi family did to the Indian National Congress, to the detriment of the party and Indian democracy alike. In
France, Marine Le Pen leads the far-right party founded by her father; and Trump, of course, has just enthroned his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair of the RNC, making the party also something like a family business.
Cult leaders can command their followers in ways that even the most charismatic politician cannot. A proper party would have found a way to stop Trump and his fanatical fans before the insurrection of January 6, 2021. And even after that, Republicans could have shown courage and some commitment to their own professed principles by impeaching Trump in February 2021. Instead, they have spoken out only behind closed doors or after leaving politics. As a result, the party is now dominated by a leader with deeply authoritarian instincts, who is patently unfit for office. In America’s two-party system, one of the parties is turning against democracy itself.
It is not just Trump, though. At one point while he was in office, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had no political party at all, and thus no check on his power from somewhat like-minded politicians. Other farright populists do have parties, but they run them in a highly autocratic fashion. Examples range from
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Jarosław Kaczyński, who had such a grip on Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party when it was in power that he scarcely bothered to take a government post to rule the country.
Strengthening party regulations might help. In the Netherlands, the party of far-right populist Geert Wilders has only two members: Wilders and a foundation with one member, who just so happens to be Wilders. Such one-man rule (literally) would not be legal in neighboring Germany, where the country’s Basic Law affirms that parties’ “internal organization must conform to democratic principles.”
Yes, there is a limit to internal party democracy: it can tip into factionalism, which can turn off voters; and it can provoke unproductive or esoteric debates that make parties seem overly sectarian. But the Republican Party’s transformation into an authoritarian tool shows why such risks are worth taking.