Taegan Goddard: The Party No Longer Decides

Chris Riback and Taegan Goddard discuss the how Donald Trump's campaign not only broke the Republican party but broke political science.

What in the world is going on? We are well into a primary season with results few of us expected, headed straight to a general election that even fewer dare to predict. All of us – and certainly both major political parties – are in unchartered territory. For Democrats, their new location at least appears to be on a pre-existing map. For Republicans, their new map reveals a planet they never knew existed – a place that frequently shows little signs of gravity – and I mean both definitions of the word, with its lack of seriousness alongside a certain amount of weightlessness. This place is a foreign territory – there’s no huge wall to keep us out. It’s a place where the leading candidate and possible nominee is hated by the party establishment, actively running against the Party – and Party ideology – he hopes to represent. Yet this new planet may be exactly where the future of politics is headed. A place where the direct connection between candidate and voter has changed – and governs – everything. So how did we get here? More importantly, where are we going? To kick off our season and help us find answers, there’s no one better than my friend and Political Wire’s namesake, Taegan Goddard.