The Origins of the TrumpRepublican Party: A Different View from that of Steve Schmidt
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August 2018; see the Supreme Court decision killing the Voting Rights Act, April 27, 2026; click here )
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"How do you spell ICE in German? GESTAPO." (S. Jonas, July 2025)
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"First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
"Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
"Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me." Pastor Martin Niemoller (c. 1946)
On March 21, 2026, Steve Schmidt ran a "Warning" column entitled "The Collapse of the Grand Old Party." In it he put forth the proposition that the modern Republican Party, or as I call it the "TrumpRepublican" or "TrumpRepubloFascist" Party, originated only recently, that is with the capture of the Party by Trump and the major right-wing members of the U.S. Ruling Class which control him (see, e.g., Project 2025). Steve sets forth the position that before Trumpism, the Republican Party was something fundamentally different from what it is now. As my regular readers know, and especially as readers of my Comments on Steve's columns know, I am a big fan of Steve's. And yes, the Republican Party is different in kind now from what it was up prior to Trump's election. But in my view, the difference is a matter of historical degree, not kind. And that is what this column is about.
As readers of my columns also know, in my view the primary goal of the current Republican Party leadership, as centered in Washington (see The Heritage Foundation and P2025), is the replacement of the tri-partite/Separation-of-Powers government that the U.S. now has (on paper at least!), which is our government's central defining feature, with a unitary government (commonly known "fascist." That is, both the legislative and executive powers would lie in the hands of the President (or whatever other title might be used), with the judiciary possibly independent on paper, but ultimately subservient to the Executive Branch. (As it happened, this was case in Nazi Germany). Thus, do I think that the Party is different now than it was before Trump, Trumpism, and the Trumpists? Of course I do. (Who would/could not?) But unlike Steve, I think that this is a difference in degree not kind.
As Steve said: "The Republican Party once stood for something enduring: the preservation of the Union, the expansion of freedom, the defense of democratic norms through an unbreakable faith in the Constitution." He traces the beginning of the modern decline to the short-but-so-impactful leadership of one Newt Gingrich. He then traces that decline forward through "W" Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco (Single Issue) Rubio, the current "speaker" of the House (that should rather be Puppet of the House), Mike Johnson, Steven Miller, and so on and so forth. It is true of course that these folk are vastly different from Sen. John McCain, for whom Steve was a major staffer in the 2008 Presidential Election. But John McCain was not at all symbolic of the modern Republican Party.
In this column, I am not going to argue about whether or not it is the list of names above that has made the Republican Party what it is today. They have certainly been very influential in that, both in their support-of-/subservience-to Trump. Rather, I am making the case that the stage has been set, gradually to be sure, for the modern TrumpRepublican Party, from the time of its founding. Was the Republican Party of Lincoln and the Civil War the progressive party of the time? Surely it was. But surely the Party of Lincoln was the exception. For the Republican Party started to change policies and direction fairly quickly after the end of the Civil War, and with the beginnings of the Destruction of Reconstruction by President Andrew Johnson (reversed of course to some extent under President Ulysses Grant).
But then that change was accelerated with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes in the disputed election of 1876. On paper, that election had been won by the Democrat, Samuel Tilden who, among other things, promised that he would support the maintenance of Federal troops in the South, to continue what had then been achieved so far under Reconstruction. It was Hayes, the Republican, who promised to withdraw the Federal troops. He became President, and he did so. And that set the stage for the gradual introduction of what came to known as "Jim Crow." Its major features were public facilities segregation, school segregation, and prevention of any meaningful Black voting.
As it happens, a major objective of the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, nominated by "W" Bush, has been to restore a set of former legal limitations on Black voting. First was "the "Shelby" decision, then came "Citizens United," and now we have Louisiana v. Callais. Roberts has a nice smile. Couldn't hurt a fly, now, could he? Well, to go along with his recent establishment of Presidential immunity for criminal acts while in office, for some years now he has led the drive to re-establish Jim Crow voting in the South. Not Republican? Well, just go back to a Republican, Pres. Hayes (who rose to the rank of "Brevet General" in the Union Army --- sorry, I have no idea what that rank is) who, as noted above, functionally ended Reconstruction.
To repeat, my major argument here, as set forth in outline below, was that, at the beginning, and certainly through the Civil War under Pres. Lincoln's leadership, it was of course a firmly anti-slavery party, with major Abolitionist elements in it. Also it was opposed to any expansion of the institution of slavery Westward from where it already existed. But, to repeat, at the same time the seeds of modern TrumpRepubloFascism were there from its founding, and were then gradually played out over time. Of course, it was the Republican Party, under President Lincoln, who/which "won the Civil War and freed the slaves." But I am talking about the seeds of Reaction, there from the beginning, which eventually led to the full growth of Republican Reaction that now commands the Federal Government and that of many states.
Ad so, here is brief list of the major elements and actions, present from the beginnings of the Republican Party, in chronological order.
1856: One founding component of the Party were representatives of a short-lived, totally anti- immigrant/immigration Party, commonly known as the "Know Nothings." (For them, the term meant "I know nothing but the Constitution.") Below is a partial listing of Republican anti- immigration and anti-immigrant laws and policies that have been put on the books down to the present time. Another founding component was the Women's Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU did eventually get one "reward," at an astronomic cost to the Nation.
1875: A Federal law, the Page Act, which banned the immigration of most Chinese women.
1882: The "Chinese Exclusion Act" (Click Here).
1919: This was the year of the one "Big Reward" (many years down the road from the Founding, but a huge payoff, nevertheless), for the WCTU, Prohibition, a massive, self-created, on-going national disaster, which was not brought to an end until 1933.
1924: The famous, nationality-exclusive, "Immigration Act" of 1924 (Click Here).
1936: The Republican-sponsored (see, e.g. Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and Father Coughlin) national anti-Semitic/Jewish-exclusion policies of the 1930s. See also Philip Roth: The Plot Against America).
1936-41: It was the Republican policy of "Isolationism" which prevented the U.S. from coming to the aid of the dwindling number of democracies in Europe, beginning with the onset of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 (a war of a fascist attack on, and eventual victory over, Constitutional Democracy), until "Pearl Harbor" forced the U.S. into the Second World War.
1933-45: The Republicans were against every one of FDR's "New Deal" policies, which opposition, for example, prevented the adoption of a national health insurance program (even Nazi Germany had one, and a pretty good for its time, at that, and Japan had had one since 1925) as part of the Social Security System (which the Republicans did allow to get through), which we still do not have and the Republicans still do not want.
Late 1940s to the mid-1950s: Generally known as the "McCarthy Era" (although there were certainly members of both parties active in it, or not opposed to it, including both of the assassinated Kennedys for a time when they were young) produced some jailings-for-beliefs and very widespread "black-listing." It was established by the Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy and received support, as well as very little push-back, from members of his Party and Democrats too, of course. Closely associated with the agenda of McCarthyism and its broad-based assault of the Freedom of Speech (which in numerous instances cost people their livelihoods) was the House Un-American Activities Committee (1938-1969, dominated by Republicans for most of its existence).
1954-1975: The Viet Nam War was originally the product of plotting by two leading Republicans of the time, The Dulles Brothers, from the conclusion of the Geneva Accords which ended the French-Indochinese War in 1953, and which was supposed to lead to free elections throughout Viet Nam Click Here. During the 1968 Presidential Election, Richard Nixon interfered behind the scenes in an attempt to get the South Vietnamese government not to conclude negotiations with the North, which it was then undertaking, to bring the war either to a pause or to an end, which would have of course benefited the Democratic Candidate, Hubert Humphrey.
1968-75: Nixon and "The Southern Strategy." Seeing the turn of the Democratic Party under President Johnson to the full-throated support of "civil rights" and related legislation, Nixon took the Republican Party South, where it has been entrenched ever since (Click Here).
1981: Then came Reagan, who symbolically made his first stop on the campaign trail after receiving the Republican Nomination for President, at Philadelphia, MS., where the three young civil rights workers had been murdered during the "Freedom Summer" of 1964. (And oh yes, Sen. Goldwater voted against the Civil Right Act of 1964.)
And so on and so forth (with certain of the names mentioned above) down to the Trumpian present time. My argument with Steve is not about the current Republican policies and legislative and administrative measures (see e.g., ICE, the U.S.'s very own Gestapo). It's rather that, historically, it's nothing new. That is, it's worse by degree, not kind.