Page and Gilens offer some useful criticisms and suggestions that are surely worthy of pursuit. As they suggest, our analysis is not primarily motivated by the role of money in politics, even though we would fully endorse their critique of its damaging consequences for fundamental principles of democratic governance. Their own analyses are quite compelling on this and related issues. At the same time, money is not the sole problem in American electoral politics, and our analysis addresses a different set of issues.

Our primary argument is that contemporary American politics, as well as the events of the Trump ascendancy, cannot be understood apart from the presence of racial animosity and grievance within the US electorate. Page and Gilens claim, “As a candidate, Trump actually advocated important elements of progressive left-wing populism.” We do not, however, believe that President Trump’s promises of economic benefits to working-class Americans, as well as his promises of a new and better health care plan, were plausible on their own merits.

Indeed, Trump’s appeals to the working class were embedded within an only thinly disguised and fully transparent message of white grievance. And his rallies were, not surprisingly, full of white faces. Just as important, his performance in office reinforced the race-based signals he was sending, beginning with his response to the tragic events that unfolded in the Charlottesville riots and continuing through his recent reluctance to denounce white supremacy groups during the first presidential debate with Joe Biden.

We agree, as Page and Gilens suggest, that Trump has packaged an appeal that is quite different from the rhetoric of the traditionally conservative Republican Party. But we do not see it as combining elements of progressive populism with regressive populism. The traditional Republican position has typically supported small government and pro-business positions while resisting individual reliance on government-sponsored social welfare policy. In contrast, Trump embraces support for business and commerce while paying lip service to the support for social welfare measures.

Donald Trump’s presidency represents a dramatic break from the Republican Party’s best traditions and hence represents a departure from the long-standing basis of competition between the two parties. Important parts of the Republican Party’s history have been based on fiscal and social conservatism, traditional moral values, environmentalism, and individual freedom. In contrast, Trump’s Republican Party has embraced a right-wing version of populism that stands as a repudiation of these values. The outcome for the Republican Party has been disappointing on several dimensions—a failure to pursue its own conservative economic traditions, a continuation of racial conflict, and a failure to deliver on the party’s purported social welfare policy pretentions.

Page and Gilens also ask to what extent wealthy elites “created or magnified the racism and other social resentments that Trump mobilized into electoral support?” We take this to mean that reforms aimed at curbing the role of money in politics would reduce the amplification of social resentments. That may certainly help, but we find that the electoral strategy of playing up social resentment is rooted in the larger realignment of the parties that began with the fracturing of the New Deal coalition. Thus, the ascendancy of partisan polarization and racial division across the parties represents the continuation of a long-term realignment of the political parties that began in the 1950s and 1960s and preceded the modern explosion of money in politics.