It’s strange to think anyone believed the era of Trumpism would magically end once the 45th president left office. Daily battles with the press and on social media may have stopped, but the GOP allegiance to Donald Trump seems anything but wavering.
The most substantial proof of this is the Republican Party’s collective insistence that the Trump-critical should not only get condemned but ousted. The tent of conservatism can include divergent avenues of thought insofar as they relate to policy. Protecting the most prominent personality ever seen on the GOP political stage is an entirely different matter. And he’s worth shielding from disapproval at all costs. In a May 10 letter to Republican colleagues, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said, “Each day spent relitigating the past is one day less we have to seize the future.” On its own, this statement is correct. There is every reason to move beyond the last few months toward a present and future dedicated to defeating the Democratic Party.
The only problem is that most current GOP politicians believe “seizing the future” includes the anchor of Trump.
After all, Trump is the kind of unbridled bully the party so desperately craves. He’s a winner in the sense that he won via the Electoral College in 2016 and lost in 2020 to a supposedly doddering septuagenarian. He’s a fighter in the sense that his antics have gotten him banned from social media platforms, and now, he must pathetically share his Twitter-like thoughts via a memo on his personal website.
To this day, the former president believes the 2020 election was stolen. The Matt Gaetzes and Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the party believe it. The more ardent admirers who head to the polls do as well. Jan. 6 wasn’t a scourge; it was a moment of defiance against godless socialism. It wasn’t an international embarrassment fueled by conspiracies and high-ranking GOP enablers. It wasn’t distorted defiance against millions of fellow people who just happen to vote another way. Believing and propagating these lies is behavior that will endure well into the midterm election cycle. It will not cease only if disobedient members of the Republican Party, such as Rep. Liz Cheney, are criticized and removed from leadership.
If anything, these claims will grow even more potent and louder as a petulant Trump sits on the sidelines, banned from his online world. They will also remain in a deeply divided United States during a Biden/Harris administration that is anything but centrist.
This sad fact remains: The best way to purge the GOP of Trumpism is to nominate him and then see him lose again. One final blow to the relatively new religion should starve it of its life. Otherwise, loyalty to the man, or at least the same brand of politics that he espouses, will continue. The Trump populists, and even the man himself, must be demoralized. Then, the party should rebuild. A GOP that offered a decent candidate in 2020 might have captured the White House once again. It’s not that President Joe Biden is a better alternative; he just isn’t Trump.
The immediate future of the Republican Party is Trump and those like-minded unless steps get taken to rid the GOP of him and his mentality. The purification process won’t get done by requesting that the party unify and look forward. There are still too many who remain deeply devoted to the man who disgraced the office and helped to incite an insurrection. Because of that, one final Trump-fueled burnout in 2024 would be for the best. Losing to the Democratic Party is in no way ideal, but this is the hand dealt to the GOP by the sycophants and grifters who still inhabit its ranks. The onus is on them, not the conservatives who find themselves politically homeless.
There is no reason for an enthusiastic and cultish commitment to a disgraced president, especially one who still spouts the big lie. And since far too many insist on defending him simply because Democrats exist, then the party deserves one final taste of its own medicine. In 2016, the Right took a remarkable turn away from formerly concrete principles to support Trump. It would take a unique and painful loss to turn them back. To act as if Trump is the future of the Republican Party is foolish and self-destructive. However, since the GOP is undeterred from such a path at its highest level, they should continue down that way until the bitter end.
