Against the Grain

How the GOP Lurched Further to the Right

The Republican Party has traditionally been the party of the business class. But since the era of Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, the GOP has been marked by internal strife and ideological chaos — and in the last presidential election, the business class overwhelmingly supported Harris over Trump. Historian Paul Heideman considers the makings of a far rightward shift by the GOP, which has not been matched by an equivalent leftward turn of the Democrat Party.

Paul Heideman, Rogue Elephant: How Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos Verso, 2025

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash