The NPR Politics Podcast - What Does It Mean To Be A Republican Or A Democrat In The Trump Era?

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

The lines between what the Republican and Democratic parties believe have blurred since President Trump first became candidate Trump in 2015. We discuss how the parties — and their supporters — have shifted, and where they go from here.This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt, and senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Jamie here with my husband. Patrick. We're riding in an Amtrak sleeper on the Hudson on our way to Arizona because we finally found the time to schedule our honeymoon two and a half years after our wedding. This podcast was recorded at. 106 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, November 25th, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you've heard this, but we'll still be enjoying our delayed... Not due to Amtrak.

Honeywood. All aboard. Oh, okay. Here's the show. I love that. I love a train vacation. Enjoy. Joe Biden approved honeymoon. Yeah, totally. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And today on the show, we're taking a moment to go deep on this question. What do the two main political parties actually represent now? Democrats and Republicans have historically, at least, had different ideas of what government should do and how they should govern when in power.

You could tell them apart pretty readily. But those lines are getting a little blurred, mainly thanks to President Trump, whose political views borrow liberally from all sides of the political spectrum. Damn, I want to start with you in this conversation because you've covered Donald Trump from his first go-round in the White House. You know, there's an R next to Trump's name, but there's a lot of things he's pushed for that don't really neatly fit in the classic. idea of the Republican Party? Yeah, if you look at the past 40 years, Republicans have been in favor of free trade and free markets. But Trump has imposed tariffs on friends and foes alike. In business, he picks winners and losers and has even pushed for the government to take portions of certain companies in exchange for favorable treatment. And when it comes to foreign policy,

unlike Republican leaders, going back to Ronald Reagan at least, Trump has had little use for longstanding alliances or promoting American values abroad. But interestingly, Trump's America First hasn't meant pure isolationism either. If you look at the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and the buildup of the U.S. military that's happening right now near Venezuela, that doesn't really fit with how he initially described MAGA. I think, it's so interesting because it's like the idea of conservatism in the Trump era has changed a lot. I asked David Barker about this. He's a professor of government at American University. And he, to Tam's point, you know, talked about how it's really not clear anymore exactly what this label conservative means.

People I tend to associate the term with just being like really pro-Trump. But there are a lot of elements to the MAGA right that are largely or wholly inconsistent with what we used to. to think of as conservatism in the Reagan and Bush eras. You know, like a function, one of the functions of a political party, why it's like a thing to have, is to act as a shorthand. You know, you see the R and D in the voting booth on the ballot. You might not know the candidate very well. And the idea is it acts as sort of a proxy for a set of values and, you know, philosophical ideas of what a party is. And now that's just a lot more complicated because the party is unified around a figure much more so than a set of principles.

Yeah. And sometimes President Trump is all in on party orthodoxy and sometimes he's not. And there isn't this like clear guiding principle. A lot of it is about his instincts, how he feels about a company or or a person, how those people feel about him. There isn't a doctrine. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, that could create a lot of tension within the party, right? And we've obviously. actually seen this happen. Marjorie Taylor Green, a Republican who for a long time was a loyal foot soldier for Donald Trump and his ambitions, said she's done. She's resigning in January, and here is what she said in her announcement. If I am cast aside by the president and the MAGA political machine and replaced by neocons, big pharma, big tech, military industrial war complex,

foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can never, ever relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well. There's a lot to unpack in what she said. But if you look at how Trump has governed, it hasn't always been in line with the idea of MAGA. So, yeah, she is not happy with him about this buildup of military might near Venezuela. She is not happy to see big pharma executives coming into the White House and getting the platform in the Oval Office.

And the president's big, beautiful ballroom that he wants to build, that is being funded by corporations and wealthy donors. She says that she is speaking for the common American, the people who put President Trump in office, and that he has not necessarily always governed for them. They're looking at their grocery bills. They're looking at their power bills and they're saying, Mr. President, you can't just say this is a golden age because it may be a golden age for invidia, but it's, It's not a golden age for us. What I think is so interesting about this is like Trump was always part of this Make America a Great Again movement. Like you can't, obviously it was about the personality. But it was also around a set of philosophical beliefs.

America first, here at home and abroad, you know, issues that were really important to the base. You know, affordability like Tam said, the groceries, health care, which is becoming a whole other thing in terms of affordability. no foreign intervention. And of course, the Epstein files. Like those were things that were really important to the MAGA base. And in the lead up to her announcement, Green was talking about this disconnect between what she sees as like the things that are important to MAGA and what the president himself is talking about. And I think that we shouldn't put too much weight on Marjorie Taylor Green, the congresswoman, because she is this iconic class. She's a person unto herself. And as she said in her video announcing she was quitting Congress, she never. really fit in in Washington. But I do think that she does speak to some underlying issues when you get past sort of the loyalty and dedication that Trump has from his base. You know, Congresswoman Green is one data point here. But I think she also represents a challenge that congressional Republicans will have next year. Because if there is this dissonance between the White House's messaging on affordability, when you're running a race, when you're running for the

House, incumbents or, you know, or challengers, that's not a message that they can take, right? So there was this very public disagreement between the president and Green. That type of thing, I think, is something that we can expect to see more of next year because navigating that line, I mean, that's a tough balance to do. So I think it's kind of the beginning of some of that. Yeah. It looks like what's happening here is that Trump is borrowing from a lot of political ideologies. And that includes MAGA, even though he's the face of it. Like he's dipping in, cares about some of those issues. But he also does care about. arguably some very conservative, traditionally conservative ideas like tax cuts, right?

like this is a great example. Yeah, and his one big, beautiful bill, that is the technical name for it, included significant tax cuts. It also included significant spending, but on immigration enforcement, which is something that certainly he has moved the Republican Party in the direction of very strongly supporting immigration enforcement. It also included to pay for some of these tax cuts, cuts to social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP. And those are things that, traditional conservative Republicans, even like Tea Party Republicans, yeah, they want to cut those programs and reduce the size of the deficit. But on net, this bill doesn't reduce the size of the deficit. And it also includes some more populist tax cuts, things like no taxes on tips that President Trump campaigned on. So it's this blending that's happening on policy between traditional Republican ideas and more populist ideas that Trump campaigned on that got him into office that got him support from working class voters who had traditionally been Democratic voters. The modern Republican Party is built around Trump. What happens when Donald Trump,

who can't run for president again, is completely out of the picture? I mean, is there room for some kind of cohesive messaging without him? Well, I think there's a couple parts to this. I think on the one hand, I talked to some historians about this to make sure I was getting all my history right. But, you know, in large part, a leader of a party is usually the either candidate for president or the president. And they do, to large degree, reshape the party in their image to some degree. I think what we're talking about here is more expansive, but it's not like other presidents haven't done that, that same type of reshaping around themselves. I think that the impact of make America great again as a movement and of President Trump himself is going to be felt for

a long time. I can't see a world in which there is a big break away from a lot of these things that has, as Tam said, like really opened the tent of the party to a lot of new voters. And the Republicans that I talk to stress the importance of Trump in terms of what he's done for the party itself, as evolved as it may have become. He's very involved with recruitment. And I think that, yes, there's some challenges about exactly how the party navigates post him as the figurehead on Pennsylvania Avenue. But I don't think his presence is going anywhere anytime soon. He has been the main character in our politics ever since he rode down that escalator. And because of that, he has really defined who is in the party, who is welcome in the party. The fact that Marjorie Taylor Green

quit to avoid a primary is a sign of his influence. Because the people who have crossed Tim, with very few exceptions, are no longer elected Republicans. He has reshaped the party just by ejecting people who he doesn't like or who criticize him in any way. But he will be gone. He will not be the main character. And one political scientist I talked to said that his outsized presence really has papered over some underlying disagreements in the Republican coalition about the size of government, the role of government. And those are some of the things that will get battled out either in the coming midterms or in the next presidential election or possibly even after that.

Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll look at the evolution of the Democratic Party. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. And we're back. And we're talking about the role of political parties in government as our politics keep changing. Barbara, the Democrats are obviously in a very weird space. They took a big gamble in 2024 by replacing Joe Biden on the ticket and they lost. So there's not really like this natural leader of the party as a person,

but more so as an idea. And this is thanks in part to Donald Trump. That's right. I mean, as much as the president has reshaped the party in his image, it's also had sort of a chain reaction for the Democratic Party. The party has become the party of anti-Trump, whatever that is. You know, and I think a byproduct of that is that it has less identity outside of Trump himself. And I think that that presents a challenge for Democrats. Trump won't be around forever. And as much as he'll have his stamp on his party, I think the big question for Democrats is how do they navigate a world? where they can make their own stamp on the party that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. And I will say, like, for a lot of moderate and independent voters and a lot of Democratic voters that I talk to, like, just being anti-Trump is not enough. I mean, another wrinkle in all this is that the natural constituency of the Democratic Party has changed and that has also presented a lot of issues for the Democratic Party. I'm mostly thinking about working class voters here. How is that sort of influence things? Just as Trump was able to bring more white working class voters and some Latino and Black working class voters in 2024 bring them into the Republican tent, Democrats have lost some of those voters.

And just as a reminder of how much the constituencies have changed, you know, Bill Clinton was a Democrat elected by a coalition that included a whole bunch of white working class voters. And Republicans were the party of the elites. And then Trump came along. And college-educated voters moved towards the Democratic Party. Trump got working-class voters into the Republican Party. I mean, in some ways, the parties almost reversed their electorates. Not completely, obviously. But there's been this really big shift.

What hasn't shifted as quickly is their policy prescriptions. Adding to that demographic change that Tam is talking about, we have to talk about education too. I mean, that's part of this whole like elite flip, right? The share of white voters within the party has declined, yes. But those who have remained are way more likely to be college educated. And so this idea that, you know, you often hear like the party of the East Coast liberal elites, that's that's not far off. And if you were building political platforms based on the voters who voted for these parties in 2024, you would build. different platforms than exist. But that's not what's happening because they're sort of trying to adjust in real time and trying to not give up on parts of their base. And Democrats are really struggling because obviously they want these college educated voters. They're reliable voters. They're a good risk. But they also want the working class voters that used to be a solid part of

their base and they're trying to get them back and trying to figure out how to talk. talk to all of those people and what policies appeal to that very wide swath of voters is difficult. Yeah. And usually for parties, a big way in they figure out what's working and what voters like are elections. And we had these big off-year elections recently. And across the board, Democrats won, but those Democrats all look very different. New Jersey Governor-elect Mike E. Cheryl and Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger are moderates. And they won pretty significant. where they ran. And then there's, of course, the New York City mayor-elect Zara Mamdani's race, and he's a Democratic socialist. And on paper, you know, you wouldn't think that these candidates would be of the same political movement. So I wonder how do Democrats even figure out what is it that voters want from here. So one of the big takeaways was affordability. Affordability. Talk about things being too expensive. That'll solve it. It's actually remarkable because Momdani came to the White House and met with President Trump. Many people were expecting some kind of showdown, but instead it was a love fest,

like talking about the voters from Queens who say things are too expensive and they voted for Trump, but then they voted for Mom Donnie. It was a really remarkable moment, but highlights that they are actually vying for the same voters. You know, I spoke with a group called swing left. They are trying to figure out how Democrats can build back trust that was very clearly lost. in the 2024 election cycle. And they've been doing something really interesting. They have volunteers going to swing congressional districts. They're knocking on doors.

And they aren't just like trying to persuade them to vote for somebody and checking a few boxes. They're actually having very long conversations, 10, 15 minute conversations, not just with good Democrats, reliable Democrats, but with Republicans and independents too. And they're just basically asking, like, what's weighing on you? Yasmin Raji is the group's executive director. And the number one issue that has come up was not affordability. It was a broad feeling that the system is broken, that both political parties suck, and that nobody cares about that voter, their community, et cetera. So that's a remarkable thing, that the overriding sentiment, though maybe not surprising, is, gosh, nobody's listening.

Now, swing left and Democrats more broadly, haven't figured out how to go from the listening phase to the persuading phase or the messaging phase, but they're doing the listening part. And, you know, like, part of the problem that Democrats had in the last cycle was that they were downplaying inflation because they were in charge. President Biden was running for re-election. But people were clearly feeling pain. And now President Trump is doing that exact same thing, which could well be a mistake. Democrats also were, you know, to Barbara's point about defining themselves by being against

Trump, they were talking a lot about, we have to restore institutions and restore norms. But if people are out there feeling like the system is broken, then they aren't actually going to be persuaded by the party that's like, yes, we're going to restore the system that you think sucks. Yeah, we can't overstate how significant it is that there's this very big number of people who don't identify with either party. Gallup did a survey in 2024 and found that 43 percent, which is a record high, number of voters say that they identify as independence. And that is a number that should really give parties pause because to hear both parties talk about rigged systems, everything is broken, and you hear that from voters no matter

where they are on the political spectrum, I just think like parties should take note of that because that's going to be a major, major issue. Following along this thinking, I mean, it seems like focusing on ideas and not candidates, how do you think like this is going to play when Democrats start to recruit people? Yeah, I actually talked to some House members who are recruiting on both sides of the aisle. And what's really interesting to me is that when I asked, like, what kind of qualities are you looking for in the candidates that you're recruiting? They were kind of the same. People outside of the political system, people who have had success in their own spheres in their own communities, people who are veterans, small business owners. And that's

not like a new idea, you know, like that has happened before, but I do think it's different because we also have seen people recruit from political classes, like which state rep now wants to run for Congress. Like, and moving away from that, I think, from both parties is notable. And the other thing is, like, I talked to Jason Crow, he's a Democrat on the recruitment effort from Colorado. And I said, why, like, what do you want people to take away when I ask them, like, what do you think the Democratic Party stands for? And he said, the Democratic Party is the one that unrigs the system that is rigged against the working class. That is super interesting to me because that's language

that I've heard elsewhere, but not from the Democrats. Well, you've heard it from Bernie Sanders, and you've also heard it from Donald Trump. Yeah. Two men who are definitely not in the same part the political spectrum. And speaks to that like that kind of disappointment from the electorate and also like the feeling that people aren't listening to them, that things are unfair and that they don't trust the parties necessarily to fix it. Yeah. Well, I want to end this conversation kind of where we started. We were talking about where Republicans go when their leader, Donald Trump, isn't around politically anyways. And I sort of wonder the same about Democrats. You know, where do they go from here? Is this solved by them picking a leader? Will this all just sort of fall into place? It is not necessarily solved by them picking a leader. However, it could paper over things in much the same way that Trump papered over it for Republicans. Like, you know, having a candidate who is exciting or who's going to fight for you or, well, I don't think we know yet exactly what voters are going to settle on.

I know that in 2019 and 2020, people were saying, we want someone who is not Donald Trump. We want someone who we don't have to think about every day. Well, I don't know what they're going to say this time. Okay, well, let's leave it there for today. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

Thank you.