THREAD. Great, question, @JoyAnnReid! I had the same question. And for an answer, I *highly* recommend "Let Them Eat Tweets," by @Jacob_S_Hacker and Paul Pierson, which gives a clear, if depressing answer to this question. For big picture summary, read on: https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1315374529989013504

2. Going to do my best to do the book justice, but highly recommend the book, which connects the dots in an eloquent and accessible way. Basically: Like most conservative parties, the GOP is aligned with elite economic interests. Not new: Most conservative parties tend to be

3. This leads to what the authors call "The Conservative Dilemma." At some point, the party reaches a choice point: How do you get people to vote for you, when you are serving the economic interests of an elite few, (these are the plutocrats -- the rich), and it doesn't help them

4. One option is to temper your economic policy positions, to at least throw a few bones to the working class. That helps, to some degree, to moderate our positions, and keep more people under your tent. But what if you abandon that, and just go all in for the *very* wealthy?

5. You have a big problem. Because in the one hand, you have the backing of these very, very wealthy people, who you need to survive. But on the other hand, you get extreme inequality, like the below (compare with Europe)

6. If you relied on people voting on economic interests alone, you just can’t get the votes (see graph, X axis). BUT, if you can get at least some of those people to focus on social issues, you can get them (Y axis). Enter: OUTRAGE

7. I.e. Key is to mobilize voters who are economic liberals, but social conservatives (these are the populists). But it’s not enough to stoke these social/cultural flash points, you gave to get them to vote. Enter: CULTURAL INTEREST GROUPS, like the NRA and religious right

8. This might seem intuitive, but the big takeaway is that once you make this choice — to pursue social and cultural division at the expense of *any* economic interest — you’ve made a Devil’s bargain which leads to a shame spiral...

9. One where the division/culture war *has* to be an *ongoing strategy,* not a means to any policy end. I.e., there IS no social policy or end point/vision which is “utopia,” since the agitation must remain in effect to achieve elite economic goals. Enter: EXTREMISM

10. What that means is that increasingly, constituencies are either dropped from the tent (e.g. Latinos, who might be Econ lib/social cons because the outrage now has to target them), or increasing extremism causes people to also opt-out (e.g. more “traditional” conservatives)

11. Which then leaves a shrinking base that requires MORE to “rile up” (see, e.g. white nationalists, QAnon) and also, -not enough to deliver votes even if they are fullymobilized-. Enter the three “Rs”: RACIALIZATION, RESENTMENT, and....*RIGGING*

12. I.e. you now create stupid culture wars over things like wearing a mask in a pandemic, blame everything on immigrants and minorities, and also do everything you can to make it harder for people to actually vote. Which further shrinks your base, rinse and repeat tweets 6-10

13. Bottom line, the socio-cultural stuff is a distraction with no real end game — if a “goal” were “achieved” it would undermine the strategy — but it’s there to serve narrow economic interests. Authors are optimistic at the end but...I’m not. END

P.S. Here is an excellent piece by @ezraklein on this book and what its thesis/findings mean for the future of the Republican Party -- worth reading (though be warned, he is also not particularly optimistic) https://www.vox.com/2020/8/6/21354453/inequality-trump-election-populism-plutocracy-hacker-pierson-let-them-eat-tweets