The Breakdown: Can Any Candidate Keep the GOP Together?

The Breakdown: Can Any Candidate Keep the GOP Together?

The Breakdown: Can Any Candidate Keep the GOP Together?

Can the fractious elements of the Republican party—from tea party fanatics to fiscal hawks and the religious right—come together behind a single candidate?

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Can the fractious elements of the party—including tea party fanatics, fiscal hawks and the religious right—come together behind a single candidate?

The Republican field of presidential candidates that took the stage at the high-tech CNN debate on Monday spanned the party’s ideological spectrum. But can the fractious elements of the party—including tea party fanatics, fiscal hawks and the religious right—come together behind a single candidate? On this week’s episode of The Breakdown, The Nation‘s Washington editor Christopher Hayes talks to Slate political reporter Dave Weigel about the state of the conservative coalition.

Further Reading:
More on this week’s guest, Dave Weigel.
Liveblog of the CNN debate with video clips.
Rasmussen poll on the GOP field.

Subscribe to The Breakdown on iTunes to listen to fresh takes on the confusing concepts that make politics, economics and government tick. A new episode every week!

Disobey authoritarians, support The Nation

Over the past year you’ve read Nation writers like Elie Mystal, Kaveh Akbar, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Bryce Covert, Dave Zirin, Jeet Heer, Michael T. Klare, Katha Pollitt, Amy Littlefield, Gregg Gonsalves, and Sasha Abramsky take on the Trump family’s corruption, set the record straight about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s catastrophic Make America Healthy Again movement, survey the fallout and human cost of the DOGE wrecking ball, anticipate the Supreme Court’s dangerous antidemocratic rulings, and amplify successful tactics of resistance on the streets and in Congress.

We publish these stories because when members of our communities are being abducted, household debt is climbing, and AI data centers are causing water and electricity shortages, we have a duty as journalists to do all we can to inform the public.

In 2026, our aim is to do more than ever before—but we need your support to make that happen. 

Through December 31, a generous donor will match all donations up to $75,000. That means that your contribution will be doubled, dollar for dollar. If we hit the full match, we’ll be starting 2026 with $150,000 to invest in the stories that impact real people’s lives—the kinds of stories that billionaire-owned, corporate-backed outlets aren’t covering. 

With your support, our team will publish major stories that the president and his allies won’t want you to read. We’ll cover the emerging military-tech industrial complex and matters of war, peace, and surveillance, as well as the affordability crisis, hunger, housing, healthcare, the environment, attacks on reproductive rights, and much more. At the same time, we’ll imagine alternatives to Trumpian rule and uplift efforts to create a better world, here and now. 

While your gift has twice the impact, I’m asking you to support The Nation with a donation today. You’ll empower the journalists, editors, and fact-checkers best equipped to hold this authoritarian administration to account. 

I hope you won’t miss this moment—donate to The Nation today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel 

Editor and publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x