Op-Ed: What Should a New Republican Party Look Like?
The past four years have told us much — but what have we actually learned?
I Remember it Like it was Just Yesterday.
Sitting at the desk in my room, I was glued to my computer screen, watching the vote counts come in as the night dragged on. Then I saw it.
9:53 PM: Trump takes Florida
I leaped out of my seat, swung open my door, and sprinted down the hallway to the living room where my father, sitting in the dimly lit space, already had his hand over his mouth in disbelief. As I stood there in the kitchen looking into the living room, I found it hard to even coerce myself to say it.
“He did it”, I finally said, not quite believing the words coming out of my own mouth. “He took Florida. That’s it, it’s game over.” “Not quite yet”, my dad said, seemingly not wanting to get his own hopes up. “Clinton’s firewall hasn’t been called yet”, the last few states that Hillary Clinton needed to clinch the presidency were still up in the air: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Two and a half hours later, around 12:35 in the morning, and we see the words flash onto the screen: Trump takes Pennsylvania
With those three simple words, my father and I, sitting in the still-dimly-lit room, enjoyed a moment of celebration that seemed to last a lifetime. We realized the impossible had been accomplished. Donald J. Trump beat Hillary Rodham Clinton to the presidency. A woman, a career politician like no other, with a 99% chance of victory actually lost to a reality TV-Star turned politically populist pariah.
But, what I had failed to comprehend in those moments was just how much the American political landscape would shift with those three simple words.
The Four Years Since
that night have shown me much, and I feel as though I’ve learned from it. Trump did things that I firmly believe no other President could have or would have. Moving the embassy in Tel Aviv to its rightful place in Jerusalem, fighting the trade war with China, his broadside attacks on Critical Race Theory, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act early on in his presidency, his tremendous restraint when it came to warfare, and much more. Trump has certainly been the most politically-Conservative President of my lifetime. And how do I know this to be the truth? Because The Media attacked him with everything they had, up to and including sacrificing their own credibility.
The Left hated Trump, hated that he won, and hated that anyone might dare to vote for him. They hated him, and continue to hate him even now, with such a burning passion, that from the very start of his presidency, literally January 20th, they were trying to impeach him, and now that he’s gone, they’re trying to impeach him again to prevent him from even running for re-election in 2024.
From the very beginning, he knew that everyone was against him, even some “Republicans” such as those from the Lincoln Project and several members of Congress — Trump had a near-impossible uphill battle. And yet, he accomplished so much in just a single term.
However, now that Trump is out of office, now that the dust from the last four years is starting to settle a little bit, I realize I tout these accomplishments of Trump’s with a heavy heart. I believe it’s entirely possible that, despite his great and many achievements, Trump may have done irreparable damage to The Republican Party and to the Conservative Movement that will haunt us for decades to come.
The worst part is…
It isn’t even his fault.
Allow me to be more clear; I don’t think it was Trump himself that did the damage. I think it was his supporters, his radical, die-hard supporters to be specific. You know the type; red-hat-wearing, Qanon-believing, rally-attending, Capitol-Hill-invading, idolatry-committing, Dominion-machine-destroying, Red-Blooded MAGA types. They’ll do and say anything to forward Trump.
As a reasonable Trump voter, let me assure you, I don’t like these people either.
Trump didn’t create this type of supporter, but he certainly attracted them. This is the type of Trump-voter who’s poisoned the well, so to speak, when it comes to voting for Trump. Especially now, after the events of January 6th, those who loudly and proudly voted for Trump are shamelessly lumped in with the rioters that invaded the Capitol. This is something that Conservatives and the Republican Party will have to deal with for decades to come.
But is there a solution to this?
Yes.
A New Republican Party.
One that separates the wheat from the chaff. One that takes the good qualities of Trump, of which there are many, into the future and leaves the bad qualities of Trump, of which there are many, behind us.
As a political party and as a movement, this step is more crucial now than ever before to advance forward into the future without the burden of our past. The burden of the Republican Party is not Donald Trump. It is the rabid and rampant idolatry that overtook so many of his supporters on his meteoric rise to political prominence. The man who came down that escalator was seen as a savior to those who had been ignored and left behind for too many years to count. He gave a voice to the voiceless. He did what so many in Washington had been abdicating for too long — he decided to give a damn about people.
But most importantly, he was a fighter. A quality which many Republicans sadly lack. The reason he won was the very same reason he “shouldn’t” have won — he was unpresidential. Like so many have stated before me, Donald Trump was a giant, throbbing middle finger to The Establishment, both Left and Right, to The Media, to Hollywood, and to an entire societal infrastructure that had forgotten all about Middle-America. This quality of Trump, of being an incredibly loud “screw you”, gave way to a new word:
Trumpism.
A well-known celebrity, “fighting like Hell” for the “little guy”, the disaffected voter. That was the entire appeal of the man. Trumpism, not Trump himself, is what launched Trump into office. It’s what’s going to continue to launch Conservatives into office in the future.
Trumpism took the U.S., and the world, by storm. As an incredibly polarizing ideology, it naturally draws people to the ballot boxes, both Left and Right. A New Republican Party must manage to do this again, plus maybe some class and minus the worship. As Trump himself jokingly stated in early 2016:
“[The polls] say I have the most loyal people. Did ya ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters! OK? It’s, like, incredible!”
I’ll go out on a limb and say it: that’s not a good thing.
When voters are willing to die for their elected representative, we know we’ve probably gone too far.
