Independent campaign money stripped party leaders of their gatekeeping power

Evidence

The outcome of the conspiracist attack on parties is delegitimation. But escalating conspiracist assaults on parties do not arise in a vacuum. Parties are vulnerable targets. The organizational apparatus of both major parties had been weakened so that, by the time of the 2016 election, official party endorsements had little weight, and party leaders had little capacity to prevent a “hostile takeover” of presidential primaries by outsider candidates. In large part, the vulnerability of parties has to do with money. Wealthy individuals and independent groups spend vast sums advertising in support of candidates and issues as they see fit, so that party leaders and organizations no longer control access to campaign funding. They have lost much of their capacity to vet candidates and hold the party together for governing. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 228

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to literature on party decentralization/dealignment and citizen-united-era campaign finance; echoes author’s chapter framing of parties as the conspiracist target.