I’m starting to think the idea that Trump captured the Republican Party has it exactly backward. It’s the party that’s captured Trump, making him pursue all its favorite policies (taxes, judges, deregulation), just with a modicum of space for Trumpian idiosyncrasy on trade.

Moreover, Trump has the great virtue from the standpoint of the R party that he can increase support for it among the less well off whites by playing the racism and nativism card. Otherwise, plutocratic policies would have dwindling electoral support.

Which, by the way, is why I am unconvinced by @ezraklein’s argument (in his new book) downplaying material conditions (inequality and economic insecurity) as a strong factor behind “polarized identity.”

Aside from the fact that there’s a ton of evidence pointing to economic factors (trade, jobs, austerity) behind the rise of the nativist right in the US and Europe, appealing to the electorate on identity grounds is the obvious plutocratic strategy in such unequal times.

We develop the last point theoretically (and anecdotally) in this paper https://drodrik.scholar.harvard.edu/publications/ideas-versus-interests.

I now see that Hacker and Pierson have made this argument (much more thoroughly and convincingly) in their forthcoming book “Let Them Eat Tweets.” “Republicans use white identity to defend wealth inequality” as H&P put it.

I love the new Hacker & Pierson book (out in May btw). But oddly it’s silent on why Democrats were so passive & unable to counter R’s identity strategy by offering real economic solutions to growing inequality. Can’t tell full story w/out discussing D’s own capture by plutocracy.