ABSTRACT
Ever since Donald Trump became the presidential candidate for the Republican Party, the party establishment has claimed that the real estate mogul-turned reality TV star-turned politician has "hijacked" the Grand Old Party (GOP). Their argument is that the GOP stands for very different values than Trump and Trumpism. The platform is a fairly traditional GOP document, defending US exceptionalism, the free market, the traditional family, and other Republican classics. If Trump has truly hijacked the GOP, it would mean that the party did not already have many prominent radical right representatives before his ascendance to party prominence. Moreover, radical right politics, nativism and populism, run rampant at the state and local levels, among governors and legislators alike. In short, there is little evidence for the thesis that Donald Trump is a far right outsider who has infiltrated a mainstream right-wing party, as the establishment is desperately trying to tell you and most mainstream media continue to confirm.
