Jul 7, 2026 · 41 min · 10 segments
In this episode of Politics in Question, Lee and James chat with Seth Masket about how Trump voters fundamentally changed the Republican Party. Masket is a professor of political science at the…
Seth MasketGuest
Lee DrutmanHost
James WallnerHost
It seems sort of like not anybody's functional idea of what a political party should look like in a mass representative democracy.
you know, you go back a decade or so, like I've generally been supportive of stronger party organizations, right? Party organizations that can have more control over who their party nominates for different contests and can screen out various people.
And I think if, you know, if that sort of thing had existed in 2016, there's a chance that the Republicans don't nominate Donald Trump that year.
Um, because everyone involved in the party leadership is, you know, is, is very loyal to Trump.
I don't think, uh, most voters within the party are interested in hearing that sort of thing.
Um, so the, the two parties to me right now are like vastly different places, right? um about how this sort of thing works and uh you know where one is just like increasingly you know you know donald trump did not sort of like scratch a satisfying itch for republicans like okay finally we tried the outsider thing now we'll now we'll go to some more insider stuff They still seem to be moving further in that direction.
I'm not trying to suck up here, but I tend to like some of your reforms at this point.
To the extent there's a problem within the parties, and I think particularly within the Republican one, it's not going to be fixed from the outside.
It's not going to be fixed by... changing, you know, how powerful, uh, Republican organizations can be or how much control they have over primaries.
We probably need more parties, right? Um, we need, you know, just to give voters some other options.
If there's voters within the, you know, in the Republican circles who are not happy with the way this is going, create another option for them rather than just losing every time within their organization.
Um, Maybe lessening some of the costs of one party winning versus another, maybe creating incentives for parties to form coalitions and governing.
That's probably the healthiest avenue going forward, but we got two very weird large parties right now.
It seems sort of like not anybody's functional idea of what a political party should look like in a mass representative democracy.
you know, you go back a decade or so, like I've generally been supportive of stronger party organizations, right? Party organizations that can have more control over who their party nominates for different contests and can screen out various people.
And I think if, you know, if that sort of thing had existed in 2016, there's a chance that the Republicans don't nominate Donald Trump that year.
Um, because everyone involved in the party leadership is, you know, is, is very loyal to Trump.
I don't think, uh, most voters within the party are interested in hearing that sort of thing.
Um, so the, the two parties to me right now are like vastly different places, right? um about how this sort of thing works and uh you know where one is just like increasingly you know you know donald trump did not sort of like scratch a satisfying itch for republicans like okay finally we tried the outsider thing now we'll now we'll go to some more insider stuff They still seem to be moving further in that direction.
I'm not trying to suck up here, but I tend to like some of your reforms at this point.
To the extent there's a problem within the parties, and I think particularly within the Republican one, it's not going to be fixed from the outside.
It's not going to be fixed by... changing, you know, how powerful, uh, Republican organizations can be or how much control they have over primaries.
We probably need more parties, right? Um, we need, you know, just to give voters some other options.
If there's voters within the, you know, in the Republican circles who are not happy with the way this is going, create another option for them rather than just losing every time within their organization.
Um, Maybe lessening some of the costs of one party winning versus another, maybe creating incentives for parties to form coalitions and governing.
That's probably the healthiest avenue going forward, but we got two very weird large parties right now.
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