This week, opinion columnist Juan Williams writing for TheHill.com pondered the future of the Republican Party after Donald Trump – noting that when the former president is finally out of the picture, the Grand Old Party is left with a new breed of lawmakers who see the culture war as the defining issue in America.
As Williams sees it, DeSantis is essentially “Trump-lite” – he is a Harvard- and Yale-educated Republican with the ability to be even more disciplined than Trump in pursuing Trump-like culture wars and authoritarianism. DeSantis also sees that the problem is that Trump keeps losing elections.
However, a case could be made that it isn’t Trump that is actually losing, but the policies that he brought to the party. Those aren’t that different from DeSantis and others within the GOP establishment. It can win in conservative “red” states, but is unlikely to draw in independent voters – and will fail with moderate democrats.
“Most of Trump’s opponents want to win with more culture wars and remain blind to evidence that it is a losing ticket. They might be worse than Trump,” Williams added.
That sentiment was shared by USA Today opinion contributor Frank Donatelli – a former director of political affairs for the Reagan White House – who suggested, “Maybe when Republicans finally get tired of losing, they’ll return to the party’s historic traditions that worked well for a long time.”
Donatelli also noted that Trump’s biggest supporters have been social conservatives.
“These voters have been willing to overlook his spotty personal life to focus instead on his appointment of originalist judges,” he wrote. “A Supreme Court with three Trump appointees overruled Roe v. Wade. Republican state legislatures have responded by passing laws outlawing abortion in virtually all cases, a position that has little public support.”
The Republican Party is now winning its war over the abortion issue but is set to lose elections in the process. The situation will only get worse as it is creating yet another of engaged young voters.
MAGA Isn’t Republican
There are lessons from history as to what could happen. Despite being known as the GOP (Grand Old Party), the Republican Party is actually the newest of America’s two main political parties. A plethora of third parties have come and gone as well, but the Republican Party was born out of the collapse of the Whig Party in the 19th century.
The Whigs had won the elections of 1840 and 1848, but it became divided over the issue of slavery and eventually collapsed. What is notable too is that it was a loose coalition of diverse political interests that included Anti-Masons, National Republicans, and disillusioned Democrats. It was united by a shared hatred of President Andrew Jackson, and fittingly the name came from the British anti-monarchists party that existed earlier.
The modern Republican Party, which was only created in 1854, has seen its ups and downs in the past 171 years. But under Trump, the MAGA wing has become a party within the party that is often at odds with the policies of the modern Republicans.
A likely result is that this divide is too great – and the Grand Old Party will be ripped apart yet again and reformed. It could draw in those who remain committed to the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and see that the isolationist agenda of Trump is a failure. It even could draw in moderate Democrats like Senators Joseph Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who have shown to care about the interests of the country, not party first and foremost – and who are at odds with the extreme progressives in the Democratic Party
Whether this is likely to happen will depend on next year’s presidential elections. But it is clear that conservatives must finally admit that it has grown tired of losing elections, and see that the MAGA movement and culture war isn’t likely to change that fact.
Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
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