Is the Republican Party destroying itself?Thomas E. Patterson, 2020. 218 pages. Paperback. $17.99. ISBN: 9781658728638

• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Christian Scheucher
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2237

BOOK REVIEW

Is the Republican Party destroying itself?

Thomas E. Patterson, 2020. 218 pages. Paperback. $17.99. ISBN: 9781658728638

1|THE CLOCK IS RUNNING OUT FOR

THE GOP

In the opener of his new book about the self-destruction of the

U.S. Republican Party Harvard's Thomas E. Patterson quotes from a

recommended reading at the Kennedy School—Dietrich Bonhoeffer—

reasoning about folly.

Over the course of five sections, each identifying a trap, the

Republican Party has set for itself, and stepped into, Patterson lays

out very convincingly that ideology, demographic developments, the

right-wing media, big money, and (the lack of) moral have brought

down the former GOP.

Patterson describes how these forces have led to the parties very

own decline, and will even lead to its decay. From a campaign strate-

gists point of view most appealing are the demographic “time

bombs”—the steady and fast increase of young voters and immigrants

in numbers—which will prevent the GOP utilizing these voter seg-

ments to polarize—from power in the foreseeable future. To mind

comes a conversation with President Obamas strategist David Simas

at Harvard's postelection conference in 2012—Simas predicting that

the GOP due to these evolutionary changes, mainly in swing states,

may never be able to win back the White House.

In the section about ideology Patterson describes todays Republi-

cans as “not conservative at all”—reasonable, reflective, stable, pre-

serving institutions and norms—but instead employing division as a

core strategy.

Patterson concludes the leadership is moving the party “toward

the nearest thing to extinction”purely out of lust for power, by inten-

tion, and not “just “out of folly.

A book written so well will stimulate the public debate and

deserves a wide readership. Recommended strongly to party politi-

cians in Europe across the board, who find themselves in a situation

where parties have emerged on the right in the past decade. Expect it

to be a classic already before Patterson’s next Can the Democratic

Party Govern?

Christian Scheucher

Christian Scheucher Consulting, Austria

Email: cs@scheucher-consulting.at

REFERENCE

Patterson, T. E. (2020). Is the Republican Party destroying itself? Seattle,

WA: KDP Publishing.

Received: 16 June 2020Accepted: 16 June 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2237

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2237.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd1of1

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2237