And that the Trump Election or that Trump's failure in this election
would sort of result in the fracturing of the Republican Party.
And obviously, his victory on Tuesday changes all of that.
I think that the sense in which the Republican Party was in a last gasp
that some people were talking about before the election,
I'm not quite sure we can say that anymore.
>> And I think perhaps saying that I don't know how unprecedented this is,
but what strikes me with Trump is that, of course,
we'll have to see how he behaves towards and with the party.
Whether he cooperates with the party or not.
I mean, it strikes me that he is, much more than any other candidate that at
least I can remember, not indebted to anyone.
He's not particularly indebted, financially, to big donors.
He's not indebted to the Republican Party.
Most of the establishment of the Republican Party had dropped him.
So, is he going to basically try to reign unencumbered?
We don't know.
But so,
I mean, I think his relationship to the Republican party is really up in the air.
Which I think then also means that the consequences for
the Republican party of this election are also still up in the air.
As good as they may feel about themselves right now.
>> I qualify what you said just slightly, Fabian,
by saying he's not going to reign because he's not a monarch.
And this may be a shock to him.
In answer to your question which is
an excellent one, I mean there was kind of some optimism built into that I think.
I'd say two things.
Demography seems to be on the side of the Democratic Party, although many people had
placed a lot of faith in that demography on Tuesday, and it wasn't quite realized.
There's a more ominous interpretation, which it may be the death of
American conservatism, as you've defined it, which is perfectly reasonable.
We have to ask what may replace it?
And one possibility is that we saw a rather virulent expression of white
nationalism, and we could have a conservative party in
the United States which is dominated by white nationalists.
And I think that would be - we haven't had that since the 1870s and 80s which is
something David is an expert in - and that would be a ominous development indeed.
>> Thank you. It does connect with the theme of our MOOC
in an interesting way because we've been trying to look at kind of big elections,
turning point elections.
So it's kind of interesting to wonder whether we've just gone through
an aberration as some people on the discussion forum have suggested or
whether it's some kind of turning point.
In fact the last election that the MOOC looked at, in 2008,
it felt like a turning point at the time and maybe there are questions now:
what's happened in 2016, does mean that 2008 has a different significance as well.
It's really interesting of course,
the way in which the party ran away from Trump, many of them.
I mean, it's hard to think of precedents for that.
In 1964, there were Republicans,
some Republicans who distanced themselves from Barry Goldwater,
such as George Romney, the father of Mitt Romney.
But, not in nearly the same numbers, or
nearly with the same clarity that has happened this year.
So there's something interesting going on.
Maybe there's still that emerging Democratic majority thesis which some
people see has maybe been challenge by what's happened in 2016 but
maybe as you say demography suggests something different.
>> I mean, maybe just a point that I wanted to make is that the election,
of course, that I dealt with in the MOOC, 1968,
I mean the Democratic Party fell apart.
It sort of managed to, towards the very end, to pull together on behalf of
Hubert Humphrey, once he managed to put a little distance between himself and
the views of Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam.
But, I mean, basically the Vietnam war tore the party apart.
So I think in that sense, I mean, of course there are precedents for
parties temporarily also falling apart, and then gelling again afterwards.