According to the old proverb, “An elephant never forgets.” Indeed, during severe drought in Africa, old elephants have been known to lead the herd to distant watering holes that they remember visiting only as calves sixty years earlier during previous dry spells. It’s ironic, then, that the Republican Party’s mascot is the elephant. The party used to be dedicated to traditional political norms and values, particularly those of civility and compromise.1 It also used to focus on economic and national security issues. Yet thanks to Donald Trump many in the party seem to have forgotten this. As a result, the party has embraced identity politics driven by anger, incivility, intolerance, and divisiveness. Trump alone was not responsible for this shift. For instance, figures like Patrick Buchanan, who twice sought the party’s presidential nomination, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and one-time vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin had been nudging the party in this direction for years, aided by the right-wing media. But Trump took this to unprecedented extremes that now dominate the party.2 The consequences have been dire.