The Next Chapter: Trump, Haley, and the Radicalization Cycle

We're plunging into new territory and we need to be prepared

Sometimes we overlook important things because they’re quiet or they seem, at the time, forgettable. This is a profoundly American quality, but it has gotten worse as time has sped up and our attention spans have atrophied. When it comes to the 2016 Presidential Election, we get caught up in a lot of the more sensational and memorable aspects. Primarily, the rise of Donald Trump as a demagogic cult leader, the shocking results of November 8th, and the endless parade of scandals and conspiracies surrounding the race.

And, in all of this, it is very, very, very easy to forget Jeb Bush.

There’s a reason for that. Jeb was one of the worst frontrunners in modern history. Before Trump came down the escalator and effectively hijacked the party, it was common wisdom that the former governor of Florida would likely be the GOP’s nominee. His pedigree and experience suggested as much. And then, Trump absolutely wrecked him beyond all recognition.

This moment from a CBS Debate in February of 2016 is like a piece of forensic evidence from a crime. Here, we see Trump effectively neutralize Jeb. It began with the moniker of “Low-Energy,” but it was cemented with Trump breaking from the party’s orthodoxy regarding the Iraq War. Since Jeb’s brother George W. Bush’s exit from the White House in 2009, Republicans had played an uneasy game of amnesic twister by either pretending Bush’s presidency hadn’t happened or attempting to never bring up its more unpopular elements.

Trump’s takeover of the GOP demands investigation. It’s become conventional understanding now that he showed up, gained immediate control, and the rest is history. But he began as a sideshow, an oddity, and his antics and unpredictable stances on certain issues led the way to a hostile seizure. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, and the rank and file of the Republican Party resisted until there was no more resistance.

Jeb’s campaign ended after embarrassingly poor showings in primaries he was supposed to walk away with. In Iowa he got 2%. In New Hampshire only roughly 11%. Since, for those who haven’t forgotten him completely, his candidacy has been relegated to a joke. “Please clap” has become a quick and easy punchline.

But what Trump did was deliver what appeared to be a fatal blow to the ideology of Neoconservatism that had dominated the GOP for years. The idea that America was somehow “fated” by God and the universe to be a champion of liberty and freedom, and that, as a result, it was our responsibility to wage war and carry out crusades in the name of that liberty and freedom, was unapproachable within the party.

(For more on this, I cover the ideology and history in AMERICAN RULE: HOW A NATION CONQUERED THE WORLD BUT FAILED ITS PEOPLE)

The aftereffect of the War on Terror and George W. Bush’s mismanagement left the ideology vulnerable. Trump just said the thing most Americans and Republicans were already thinking. And, as an outsider, he could do that, leaving hacks like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and especially Jeb Bush, to twist in the wind. And the rest, as they say, is history.

MAGA is a lot of things. Racist. Sexist. Fascist. A religious cult. But what it also represented was a more isolationist ideology. Trump, of course, doesn’t understand this outside of his own perverse instincts, but what grew around him and what was plotted by the more intelligent and dangerous elements in his ecosystem was a protectionist worldview that sought to pause the American Empire in order to redistribute wealth and power among its citizen, primarily white, wealthy men.

Neoconservatism and its crusader elements became something like a ghost rarely spoken of and even less remembered. George W. Bush was then remade in the liberal world as an affable grandpa who got along with Michelle Obama, Ellen DeGeneres, and was, by default, so much more acceptable than Trump that we needed to forget that he and his Neoconservative cronies launched a world war that violated a slew of international laws and killed upwards of four million people.

The ideology was memory-holed to an extent. Neoconservatives started writing for liberal platforms like The New York Times, The Atlantic, and elsewhere, all of them denouncing Trump constantly and wondering Whatever happened to the Republican Party I knew and loved?

But now things have changed.

With the outbreak of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, we’re seeing Neoconservatism rise from the ashes and already Nikki Haley is gaining momentum and attracting the attention of a whole host of billionaire donors and the interest of those Never Trump Republicans. In the last debate alone she and her rivals advocated for a whole mess of preemptive wars, including with Iran, Mexico, and Russia, followed by an escalating Cold War and arms race with China.

It is very likely now that Haley could become the main rival with Trump heading into the 2024 GOP primary. That’s not to say she’ll beat him. That’s still a tall order. But we also have to consider not only what it means that MAGA could clash with a reinvigorated Neoconservatism, but also what might happen if the latter is championed by someone much more capable and less susceptible than Jeb Bush.

Because there is something to the cross-pollination of ideologies that takes place and in a world of increasing tensions and worsening precarity, we need to understand that this battle that’s taking shape could lead to a worsening radicalization within the Republican Party, moving it into a militarist fascistic organization beyond what we’ve already seen, as well as a changing American culture.

And this is something that very few people are talking about.