Why the GOP will never be rid of Trump
Love him or hate him, the GOP nominee has ignited a populist movement that conservatives cannot ignore
This is Donald Trump's Republican Party now. The rest of us are just living in it.
It wasn't all that long ago that it seemed like conservatives were back in control of the GOP. For conservatives who thought the Republican Party was sick throughout the George W. Bush years, the constitutional conservatism of Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee felt like a treatment that seemed to be working. These GOP senators worked with civil libertarian Democrats on surveillance reform and criminal justice in the Senate while their colleagues in the House Freedom Caucus emerged as a constructive voice for true conservative causes.
Yet soon, the debilitating symptoms of Washington returned. In fact, the disease worsened. Bush and John McCain were terrible at controlling government spending, inconsistent at best on civil liberties, and reckless on foreign policy. But at least they were men with basically decent impulses who weren't inclined toward racial demagoguery.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Now we can't even count those blessings. The small government wing of the Tea Party has been overwhelmed by Trump's lower-brow populist wing, consumed by red state identity politics or worse. Paul went nowhere in the Republican presidential primaries while Trump won, beating conservative Sen. Ted Cruz.
Even the constitutionalists I've praised had their problems. The American people clearly want a bigger federal government than the Constitution, strictly interpreted, authorizes. The failure of Paul and Cruz showed that even conservative voters are looking for more than an ideologically disciplined platform with arms and legs.
The biggest mistake Republicans can make is to assume that Trump's implosion and likely defeat in November would solve all the party's problems. It's tempting for Republicans to tell themselves that the party that has had such great success winning state legislative seats and the last two midterm elections would have won the White House if Trump hadn't screwed it up. But the fact is that millions of rank-and-file Republican voters don't feel like they have anything to show for those victories. The more ideological among them can't help but notice the party hasn't accomplished its ideological goals. Others are clearly starting to question whether aspects of the ideology — free trade, employer-friendly immigration policies, foreign wars, and even cuts to the top tax rate — serve their material interests.
Republicans couldn't get working-class whites to turn out with any enthusiasm for Mitt Romney. They can't get college-educated suburban whites to vote for Trump at all. They can't even get a hearing from other growing demographic groups, who with each passing election grow more convinced the Republican Party is actively hostile to them.
GOP elites hope they can simply bid the Trump voters good riddance and then the new voters will come. This is wishful thinking. New Deal liberals and civil rights supporters had to coexist inside the Democratic Party with Southern segregationists for decades before their coalition could be remade.
"Go to hell" might be an appropriate response to an alt-right Twitter user sending you racist memes on social media. It is not a constructive response to 40 percent of the Republican primary electorate.
There have always been millions of Republicans who aren't especially ideological by movement conservative standards. They are patriotic, even nationalists. They are nostalgic for the America of their youth. They voted in huge numbers for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.
Trump liberated them from their march down the Paul Ryan roadmap. Maybe Cruz or Mike Pence can persuade them to re-enlist. But it won't be easy. The RNC's post-2012 autopsy assumed future Trump voters could be safely ignored. If the New York businessman loses as badly as the polls predict, many Republicans will treat his supporters with open contempt.
"One can disavow Trump," writes The Atlantic's David Frum. "But if one disavows Trump's voters, one has effectively surrendered any hope of a center-right alternative in national politics."
Conservative immigration restrictionists like to paraphrase a poem written after the 1953 East German riots: "The government should dissolve the people and elect another one." Republican leaders don't have that option, either for their own base or the increasingly diverse electorate of the country as a whole.
Donald Rumsfeld may have been wrong about Iraq, but he was right that you can only go to war with the army you have.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.
-
'A great culture will be lost if the EV brigade gets its way'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Visa and Mastercard agree to lower swipe fees
Speed Read The companies will cap the fees they charge businesses when customers use their credit cards
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
What does 'Quiet on the Set' mean for the future of kids' TV?
In the Spotlight A new documentary exposes the 'dark underbelly' of Nickelodeon productions
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Xi-Biden meeting: what's in it for both leaders?
Today's Big Question Two superpowers seek to stabilise relations amid global turmoil but core issues of security, trade and Taiwan remain
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published