President Trump’s grip on the Republican Party is as strong as ever

President Trump used every lever of power available to muscle a massive tax bill through the House, showing his iron grip on the Republican Party four months into his second term.

A party that at one time balked at the idea of Mr Trump even running, much less winning a primary or the nomination, is now toeing the line, according to the wishes of Trump.

To be fair, this tends to happen when someone is the nominee for their party in 3 straight general elections, wins in as astonishing a manner as Trump did, and radically alters the party’s platform on many major issues.

The President has remade the GOP completely. When Trump first announced his intention to run for President back in June 2015, the GOP was reeling. It was coming off of two stinging losses to Barack Obama. It seemed that the left wing was winning not just the political battles, but the cultural ones as well.

The Republican Party was afraid to take a tough stance on illegal immigration. They were also afraid to fight back against the increased race baiting from the Democratic Party. The GOP also did not know how to approach the LGBT and abortion culture war issues.

Right around when Mr Trump announced his candidacy for President, the Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was legal nationwide. The GOP seemed like it was ready to concede on all major cultural debates, and focus almost entirely on marginal tax rates.

But Mr Trump identified a problem within the party. He recognized that many working class Americans of all races were being left behind through America’s globally focused economic policies, at the same time that their more traditional beliefs were being discarded by the culture. All of this was about left wing, rich, cultural elites, imposing their will on them.

The GOP had long been unable or unwilling to meet these people where they were. That is, until Trump came along. He spoke to Americans’ problems with unrestricted global free trade, wave after wave of illegal immigration, and a left wing over reach on cultural issues.

Trump broke the taboo that many on the left thought they had established; that you cannot oppose left wing cultural pushes; on race, immigration or LGBT, lest you be accused of being a racist, sexist or homophobe.

But by saying what was deemed “not PC,” and doing so confidently, Mr Trump gave tens of millions of normal Americans permission to say things that were quite reasonable.

To top it all off, Mr Trump is brash, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. All of these things came together to infuriate the establishment of both parties, but especially the left wing establishment, which essentially ruled America.

By standing up to these forces, Trump endeared himself to the conservative movement and to populist independents alike. It was not an easy, nor short road to get to that point.

Up until his 2016 win, and arguably through his first term and time out of office, many on the right bristled at Trump. And this isn’t even including the tiny percentage of pseudo conservatives who were actually socially liberal interventionists, who left the GOP. This included millions of people who were conservative, but could not (and in a way still struggle to) stomach Trump’s character and some of his foreign policy.

But seeing Mr Trump fight back against the left wing machine, seeing the law fare and unparalleled bias against him by what was supposed to be a fair and balanced media, and win in the most improbable way ever, endeared the man to the American right.

And Trump’s more economically populist policies, disdain for left wing cultural excesses, and (generally) smart waging of culture war issues, was actually where the median Republican voter was; pro capitalism, but wanting to make sure that the working class have protections, against the extreme leftism permeating and undermining American society through racial demagoguery and identity politics, and wanting to make sure we take care of America before other countries.

Changes from what the old guard in the party wanted to a new vision for the party take time. It took over a decade for the Democrats to go from New Deal liberalism to Third Way centrism under Bill Clinton. You could argue it took 16 years between Barry Goldwater’s 1964 nomination and massive defeat to Ronald Reagan’s free market, muscular American conservatism as the standard bearer for the GOP and America in the 1980s.

Mr Trump’s character and lack of ideological consistency was, and likely will continue to be a problem. But that shouldn’t distract from the fact that he has fundamentally shifted the GOP, in a direction that most of its voters, especially its younger, more racially diverse ones, want.

The movement towards economic populism, fighting extreme cultural leftism, and working against an entrenched left wing establishment are values that will outlast Mr Trump. But Trump’s personality and singular ability to fight back against anything thrown against him, and lead this movement with his own personal charisma, is why his grip on the GOP is as strong as ever.