A Conservatives Take on the Chaotic State of the Republican Party
Republicans already hold tremendous power in America. They have appointed six of the nine current Supreme Court justices. They have more state trifectas (control of both legislative houses, as well as the governor\u2019s seat) than Democrats. And come 2023, they will also control the House of Representatives.\n\nBut there\u2019s a hollowness at the core of the modern G.O.P. It\u2019s hard to identify any clear party leader, coherent policy agenda or concerted electoral strategy. The party didn\u2019t bother putting forward a policy platform before the 2020 election or articulating an alternative policy vision in 2022. It has hardly reckoned with its under-performances in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections. At this point, it\u2019s unclear whether there\u2019s any real party structure \u2014 or substrate of ideas \u2014 left at all.\n\nAll of which raises the question: What exactly is the Republican Party at this point? What does it believe? What does it want to achieve? Whose lead does it follow? Those questions will need to be answered somehow over the next two years, as Republican politicians compete for their party\u2019s nomination for the 2024 presidential election and Republican House members wield the power of their new majority.\n\nMichael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review and a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. We disagree on plenty, but I find him to be one of the sharpest observers of the contemporary Republican Party. So I invited him on the show for an inside-the-tent conversation on the chaotic state of the current G.O.P. and the choices it will have to make over the next two years.\n\nWe discuss how the party is processing the 2022 midterms, why Dougherty thinks Donald Trump has a very good chance of winning the Republican nomination again in 2024, whether the G.O.P. leadership actually understands its own voters, how Ron DeSantis rose to become one of the party\u2019s leading 2024 contenders, whether DeSantis \u2014 and the G.O.P. more broadly \u2014 actually have an economic agenda at this point, why Trump\u2019s greatest strength in 2024 could be the economy he presided over in 2018 and 2019, why Dougherty doesn\u2019t think Trump\u2019s political appeal is transferable to anyone else in the Republican Party, what kind of House speaker Kevin McCarthy might be, which Republicans \u2014 other than Trump and DeSantis \u2014 to watch out for, and more.\n\nMentioned:\n\n\u201cThe Question for DeSantis\u201d\xa0by Michael Brendan Dougherty\n\nBook Recommendations:\n\nThe German War by Nicholas Stargardt\n\nThe Demon in Democracy by Ryszard Legutko\n\nThe Face of God by Roger Scruton\n\nThoughts? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. (And if you\u2019re reaching out to recommend a guest, please write \u201cGuest Suggestion\u201d in the subject line.)\n\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\u201d at\xa0nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at\xa0https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\n\n\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\u201d is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Rog\xe9 Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker, and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta.