Atlantisches Forum Online: The Lasting Impact of the Tea Party on the GOP

Trump's refusal to concede the 2020 election, role in instigating the capitol riots, and many Republican leaders' refusal to contradict him, raise a question: What is Trump’s lasting impact on the Republican Party? To answer this, we must understand whether Trump is the cause of the Republican Party's reactionary shift, or merely a symptom. Prof. Blum argues that Trump is the standard-bearer for a faction that spent the past decade remaking the Republican coalition. Using data on state and local Tea Party mobilization, she explains how the Tea Party paved the road for Trump's rise to power, and why we should not expect to see a retraction of reactionary conservatism anytime soon. 

is the Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma. Her book on the Tea Party, How the Tea Party Captured the GOP: Insurgent Factions in American Politics (University of Chicago Press) is now available for purchase! She is also the book review editor at The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics. Originally from Denver, Colorado, she received her PhD at Georgetown University in May 2016. She specializes in political parties, ideology, political behavior, and computational methods. Her current research focuses on party factions and their impact on contemporary US politics. 

You can find out more about her here.

Photo (c): Rachel Blum