President Donald Trump had a remarkable showing on Super Tuesday. He won 11 of the first 12 contests. And with wins in Georgia, Mississippi, and Washington state this week, Trump surpassed the 1,215-delegate threshold needed to become the presumptive Republican nominee. This is all the proof you need that the Republican Party is now the Trump Party.
No non-incumbent has so decisively dominated and shaped his party since Andrew Jackson. President Jackson reacted to what his supporters regarded as the theft of the presidency by John Quincy Adams in 1824. As Robert Remini outlined in his classic work, “The Election of Andrew Jackson,” the Jacksonian movement was determined to defeat the oligarchy which had been dominating American politics and the economy, through the Bank of the United States. (This book is such a clear study of an effective insurgency that we used it in planning the Republican Contract with America campaign in 1994.)
Like President Jackson, President Trump is far more than a candidate. He is the leader of a national movement. As the movement’s champion, he can survive attacks and legal assassination attempts that would destroy normal candidates.
His string of victories in the primaries and caucuses is an historic achievement.
