Why Trump’s Blood-and-Guts Strategy Worked

Matter of Opinion

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Ross Douthat, News, New York Times, Journalism

4.2 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Happy Independence Day! We’ll be back next week with a new episode, but today we’re sharing the episode that started us on the path to “Interesting Times.” Ross Douthat talks to Reihan Salam, the president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Together they wrote the book “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.” They review their George W. Bush-era prescriptions for the Republican Party to reclaim the working-class vote and the ways they were right (and wrong) about building a new Republican majority.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, listeners, it's Ross. We're taking a break for the July 4th holiday. So while I celebrate my
0:07.1	brief independence from the podcasting life, I'm sharing one of the episodes that started us
0:13.0	on the path toward interesting times. You might have heard it before, but I still think it's
0:18.2	worth a listen now. Back in November, after Donald Trump's victory,
0:23.0	I wanted to understand not just how he won, but how he had transformed the Republican Party,
0:28.9	turning what had been a mostly white and upper middle class coalition into something much more
0:33.8	blue-collar and multiracial. I had advocated for that kind of transformation in a book I wrote
0:40.1	long ago with my friend Rihon Salam called Grand New Party. In the aftermath of George W. Bush's presidency,
0:48.2	the two of us tried to envision a new future for the GOP, not knowing, of course, that our
0:53.8	prophecy would ultimately be fulfilled,
0:56.2	in part at least, by Donald Trump. So in this conversation, you can hear us talk about what we
1:02.0	predicted and where we think the GOP has ended up, especially amid this week's debates over the
1:08.4	not necessarily populist, big, beautiful bill.
1:12.6	So enjoy, and interesting times will return next week.
1:20.7	From New York Times opinion, I'm Ross Douthan. Dauze it.
1:42.3	Rihon, good to see you.
2:01.1	I am honored and delighted to be with you, Ross. Are you? Are you honored and delighted? I am both firmly, vigorously, and also, it is funny and sad that we as middle-aged dads only get to hang out when we're on a podcast together, so here we are. We were talking about this beforehand, that this is the life. The life of the middle-aged pundit dad, as you say, we haven't seen each other in a while. Would you like to come on a New York Times
2:04.7	podcast with me? Although we do, I'm struck by the fact that we have spoken to one another
2:11.9	every fateful political moment of the 21st century. And I know that when I'm watching these election results
2:20.4	unfold, that after midnight, I do know that Ross Douthat is going to be awake, and we are going
2:26.1	to talk, and we're going to think about it in real time, and that is a very precious gift.
2:30.2	That's right. That's how the magic happens, me sitting in a, you know, food spattered
	...

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