ZadekpediaThe Republican Workers Party: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy and Why It Was Just What We Needed is a book by Frank Buckley about the ideas behind Donald Trump. Buckley first mentioned it on The Bob Zadek Show in a December 2017 episode, where he described it as a book about the ideas behind Trump, forthcoming in October 2018, and said he was talking about why the old Republican Party died and why it deserved to die F.H. Buckley on The Republic of Virtue (2017). He returned to the show on September 14, 2018, to discuss the book at length The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
The title and its origin
Asked what he meant by “the Republican Workers Party,” Buckley said what he meant by it was not so important; what mattered was what Trump meant, and that he took the title from Trump, who said, “This is going to be a Republican Workers Party.” Buckley said the phrase had resonance at many levels, and that Trump said, “I’m going to be the greatest jobs president America’s ever seen” The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
Buckley tied the phrase to work itself: from jobs follow marriage, houses, mortgages and family, which he called the things that make you moral. He contrasted this with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which he said took delight in taking jobs away from people, citing coal miners and a speech she gave in Kentucky. He described a class divide between ordinary blue-collar workers and an intellectual elite The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
The 2016 campaign
Buckley, who worked on the Trump campaign and was a speechwriter for Trump, described Trump’s nationalism and his sense that ordinary Americans were being screwed by trade deals and by both parties as basic to Trump, requiring no preparation. He called Trump completely authentic by comparison with Hillary Clinton and her advisors. But he also described deliberate outreach: the campaign’s priority was evangelicals, African Americans and Hispanics, and Buckley said he asked whether it had forgotten the Catholic voter. Catholics, he said, supported the winner in every election except 2000 since 1952, went plus six for Trump and plus 23 for white Catholics, and the consequence was Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
Jobs, government and freedom
Bob Zadek framed the question of whether job creation is a byproduct of a benign government or one of the jobs of government, noting the Constitution contains no economic concepts. Buckley answered that the Constitution is neutral and lets us fight policies out, and that a government creating the economic conditions for jobs mostly backs off rather than producing make-work jobs. He raised Milton Friedman’s negative income tax, and the difference in psychological terms between a job paying $60,000 a year and a flat gift of $60,000, citing belonging, fraternity with fellow workers, contribution to the economy, and independence from government The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
Zadek said Trump had been better than predecessors in recent memory at reducing the regulatory burden, calling the rollback a profound gift to the economy. Buckley said the campaign was a war on two fronts, against anti-nationalists in the Democratic Party and against people like Ted Cruz on the right, and that while freedom per se was not the theme, what the campaign said mostly overlapped with a libertarian agenda: removing regulatory burdens on small business, opposing crony capitalism and opposing campaign finance laws The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
Immigration and the future of the GOP
Buckley said Trump’s immigration approach was totally the Canadian points system, that those presenting it in Congress liaised daily with Canadians to fine-tune it, and that a system geared to bringing in people who will help the country’s citizens allows taking in large numbers — quality, not quantity. He pointed to Justin Trudeau welcoming refugees to Canada in December 2015 The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
On the Republican Party’s future, Buckley said it was totally in shock and had not figured it out; some people, naming Tom Cotton and Jim Jordan, were figuring it out, but most Republicans had not a clue what Republican presidential politics were like. He said allegiance to the Trump campaign and presidency would be crucially important at the local level, and called it a party in transition. He said philosophy was on the wane and pragmatism back in, and that the parallel for understanding Trump was Benjamin Disraeli, who destroyed the old English Conservative Party in 1845 and created a new one — a man suspicious of free trade who wanted a national party reaching out to all parts of Britain The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
Across episodes
The topic appears in two episodes: the December 2017 conversation with F.H. Buckley, where the book is announced as forthcoming, and the September 2018 episode devoted to it. The episodes show no development between the two treatments beyond the book’s publication.