A genial consensus that dominated Washington for decades stated that America’s century of greatness was built on largely unfettered free trade, generous immigration laws and an aggressive foreign policy that positioned the U.S. as the worldwide enforcer of those norms.
The consensus was guarded by names such as Bush, Clinton, Cheney, McCain, Obama and Biden.
Then Donald Trump came down the escalator in 2015 and unraveled it all.
In less than a decade, Mr. Trump has rewritten the rules of American politics and taken on every major dynasty of the past half-century.
The Bushes were the first to fall. Jeb Bush could not win a single state against Mr. Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries. The Clintons were next with Hillary Clinton’s shocking 2016 general election defeat.
Mr. Trump seemed on the ropes after 2020 when President Biden, a surrogate for the Obamas, reversed his progress. Mr. Trump battled back and ushered Mr. Biden into a premature political retirement this year, forcing Democrats to look for the freshest face they could muster in Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Along the way, Mr. Trump forced the Cheneys into a divorce from the modern Republican Party.
“He just blew up the most pointless and corrupt dynasties in the history of American politics,” Tucker Carlson, a leading conservative thinker, told The Washington Times. “They were always losers. That’s the thing. What it really did was it broke the hypnotic spell they’d cast over the country.”
Whatever Mr. Trump’s political future, his nine-year run has shattered the post-World War II consensus.
Michael McKenna, a pollster who served as a senior legislative aide in the Trump White House, said Mr. Trump’s path of destruction runs beyond the dynasties and includes the “legacy media.”
“There’s nothing left of it,” he said ahead of Election Day. “He’s destroyed their power over the United States. They have no authority anymore. Nobody reads them, nobody listens to them. If everybody listened to them, he’d be losing by 50 points.”
Mr. McKenna said Mr. Trump has also upended the independence of Congress, erasing institutional inertia and rendering Capitol Hill largely an afterthought of the presidency, with the parties either for or against the man in the White House.
“It’s what Trump himself said — these guys are weak,” Mr. McKenna said. “He has exploited all the weaknesses in the people and the system.”
Mr. Trump’s opponents hope to usher him off the political stage and rebuild the old consensus.
They went to great lengths to try to speed his departure.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney, once the No. 3 Republican in the House, actively campaigned with Ms. Harris. Ms. Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, announced his vote for Ms. Harris. Alberto Gonzales, attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, backed Ms. Harris and suggested that his former boss wanted Mr. Trump to lose.
The Clintons have campaigned for Ms. Harris, and the Obamas have been relentless in attacking Mr. Trump.
Mr. McKenna said the questions Mr. Trump has posed aren’t going away.
“Trump wasn’t the first guy to ask it, but he timed it perfectly. He was the first guy to ask it when everybody was ready to hear it,” said Mr. McKenna, who pens a column for The Times. “Trump comes along and asks the questions. Everybody else is like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been waiting for somebody to ask.’”
Mr. Carlson recalled Mr. Trump facing Jeb Bush in the 2016 Republican primary race and declaring that the war in Iraq “may have been the worst decision” in presidential history. That stunned the establishment, but for much of the country, it was the “emperor has no clothes” moment.
“He just asked obvious questions,” said Mr. Carlson. “People hadn’t tested the limits. But what’s amazing and so instructive were the things Trump said were not extremist in any sense. They were completely obvious and moderate. You know, the country should have borders. How has the Iraq War helped us? How is that extremist?”
H.W. Brands, a presidential historian at the University of Texas at Austin, said Mr. Trump has also carved his way through many non-dynasty politicians.
“What everyone thinks of him as an individual or of his policies, he’s a compelling political figure,” Mr. Brands said.
He said the dynasties Mr. Trump reproached weren’t offering their best champions.
“People who ride to the top on the coattails of their elders are usually not the strongest or most competent candidates or officeholders. Jeb Bush was weaker than his father. Hillary was much weaker than Bill. Liz Cheney lacks the killer instinct of her father,” he said.
Mr. Carlson agreed.
“Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Jeb Bush, Liz Cheney — these are all people with derivative power. These are minor nobles in an Ottoman Empire-type structure,” he said.
He was particularly withering in evaluating Ms. Cheney, whom he called an “affirmative action case.”
“Liz Cheney’s an idiot with no experience,” he said. “Liz Cheney only has a job because her dad is Dick Cheney.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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