RJ Hamster
How Trump Broke GOP Orthodoxy and Built a New…
 Read Online | November 16, 2025In his second term, President Donald Trump is reshaping the Republican Party in ways few could have predicted. From trade tariffs to government stakes in companies, Trump is rewriting the GOP rule book. This article examines how Trump has established a working-class party and whether it can maintain its growing blue-collar support beyond his presidency.Since Trump’s second presidential victory, the culture wars in the United States have entered a new phase. Trump has regained ground on issues related to gender, religion, and education, while opening new fronts on crime, climate change, and immigration. This article examines how conservatives view the president’s culture-war strategy and explores whether his gains will hold.  Emel AkanSenior White House Correspondent How Trump Broke GOP Orthodoxy and Built a New Working-Class Party President Donald Trump arrives to deliver a speech at the U.S. Steel Corporation – Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pa., on May 30, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch TimesWASHINGTON—On April 29, four weeks after introducing tariffs of at least 10 percent on nearly every country, President Donald Trump stood before a crowd of blue-collar workers in Michigan to mark his 100th day in office. “After decades of politicians who destroyed Detroit to build up Beijing,” Trump said, “you finally have a champion for workers in the White House.” Since his first term, Trump has broken with Republican Party orthodoxy, particularly on free trade and globalization. By championing steep tariffs and protectionist policies—cornerstones of his “America First” agenda—he has attracted a surprising new crowd to the party: union workers. Republican National Committee member Shawn Steel said the GOP has become the party of the working class. “What Trump has done, which is really intriguing to me, is he has taught Country Club, middle-class Republicans to work and align themselves with the working class,” he told The Epoch Times. “That hasn’t happened in 120 years.” Steel, a veteran party official from California, calls it a welcome change.“Our party is doing better than the Democrats among working-class males,” he said. “At one time, the Republican Party had farmers, merchants, ranchers, and working class people together—Trump has returned to that.” Some have said that Trump has reshaped the Grand Old Party in ways that were once unimaginable. He has combined traditional Republican planks—such as tax cuts, deregulation, and boosting energy production—with policies often associated with the political left, including tariffs, TrumpRx, and government ownership in private companies. Trump, however, avoids boxing his policies into a single ideology. He refers to them as “common sense” solutions. And a growing number of party members have rallied behind them. “There are some areas where Trump has veered away from more orthodox, free-market conservative policies,” former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore told The Epoch Times. Moore praised Trump’s strong support for deregulation, his energy policy, and his tax cuts, describing them as a significant stimulus to the economy. However, he said he’s not a big fan of tariffs. President Donald Trump shakes hands with coal miner Jeff Crowe at an executive order signing ceremony at the White House on April 8, 2025. Since taking office in January, Trump has also expanded government involvement in sectors critical for U.S. national security, a significant shift in industrial policy. Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesHistorically, Republicans supported free trade, while Democrats favored protectionism. From President Ronald Reagan through Trump, the GOP has consistently supported free trade, which has greatly benefited the United States, according to Moore. He estimated that the U.S. economy could grow at least half a percentage point faster without current tariffs. Moore also said Trump’s tariffs on China are understandable given Beijing’s behavior. Still, he said the GOP should find a middle ground.“If you want to isolate China, you have to have everybody else aboard, and so you don’t want to antagonize countries like Canada unnecessarily,” Moore said. Steel said Republicans still hope the tariffs are temporary. “The problem is we haven’t had free trade in decades,” Steel said, citing countries such as China that distort the world trade order with heavy subsidies and slave labor. Trump’s trade agenda has faced legal challenges from businesses and states. On Nov. 5, the Supreme Court held arguments over the legality of Trump’s global tariffs. Trump said on Nov. 6 that it would be “catastrophic” for the country if the high court were to rule against his tariffs. He said if he loses in court, he will develop an alternative plan to carry out his trade agenda.Read the full article → Executive Branch President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Oct. 31, 2025. Samuel Corum/Getty ImagesHow Trump Regained Ground, Opened New Fronts, in the Culture WarPresident Donald Trump has moved at lightning speed since being reelected to implement more than 200 executive orders, redefining U.S. policy on immigration, energy, race, education, crime, freedom of speech, and religion. When it comes to the culture wars, say conservatives, Trump has not only regained ground but also opened new fronts, presenting issues such as the environment and immigration as matters of common sense values. Whether those gains will hold is an open question. Trump has been adept at using online media to circumvent established newspapers and networks to control narratives on cultural issues, according to Jonathan Choe, an independent journalist and senior fellow with the Discovery Institute. “Trump, at the end of the day, is a businessman and a showman,” Choe told The Epoch Times. “He understands media. He’s understood it for decades, and he knows how to quickly pivot to new media. “The Trump White House, in my opinion, that entire media team, has done a spectacular job of understanding the shifts in culture, but also in the media,” he said. That doesn’t necessarily translate to lasting gains.Darryl Hart, a history professor at the conservative Hillsdale College, told the Epoch Times, “I don’t think he is changing many minds, certainly not on the other side.” “The polarization is really strong,” he said.This view is supported by recent polling data that suggests Americans remain sharply divided on cultural issues. Regarding gender issues, a May survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that, while only 41 percent of respondents approved of Trump’s performance in general, 52 percent supported his policies on transgender issues, which include barring transgender-identifying boys from girls’ sports and private spaces. Responses were split according to party, with 90 percent of Republicans supporting Trump’s policies and 81 percent of Democrats opposing them. This raises the issue of how enduring some of Trump’s policies might be if Democrats retake the White House at the end of his term. Election wins on Nov. 5 in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City, as well as a popular vote in California to redistrict the state’s electoral map, show that the opposing side remains a powerful force in America. Opening New Fronts All the same, conservative analysts say some of Trump’s cultural agenda will likely endure. Trump has opened up new fronts on the culture wars, they say, on topics such as Antifa, climate change, and immigration. “President Trump has taken something that the majority of Americans did not even realize was an issue, and now today the majority of Americans think we should deport people who have entered the country illegally,” Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, which advocates for civil liberties and smaller government, told The Epoch Times. Still, a June survey of 5,044 U.S. adults by Pew Research Center found that the public is split over this issue, with 50 percent approving the use of state and local law enforcement in deportation efforts, while 49 percent disapprove. On climate change, Trump has tried to move the country away from the narrative of existential crisis and pending global catastrophe to one of Americans having affordable and abundant energy. Prominent figures like Bill Gates and Ted Nordhaus have softened their more alarmist stances, seemingly coming around to Trump’s point of view. Gates stated that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise,” and Nordhaus wrote that he “no longer believe[s] this hyperbole.” Trump has also shone a spotlight on political violence from hardcore leftist groups like Antifa, which he designated as a domestic terrorist organization in an executive order. “Because Trump put that label on Antifa, it’s now part of the national conversation,” Choe, who is based in Seattle, told The Epoch Times. “Before, when I was covering Antifa during the early days of the [Black Lives Matter] riots in 2020, when they were going around trashing Seattle in ninja outfits, local media wouldn’t even use the word, ‘Antifa.’”“What the Trump White House has done from a messaging standpoint—waging an information war on the left-wing corporate media—they’ve done so brilliantly, in my opinion,” he said.Read the full article → Copyright © 2025 The Epoch Times, All rights reserved. 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