Since losing his bid for reelection, President Trump has been impeached, denied his best means of communication with the country, and widely denounced as a political menace. Given this treatment, one might assume Republicans, Trump’s allies in Washington especially, deserve some of the blame for his conduct and may suffer a period of political distress, as Republicans did after President Richard Nixon’s impeachment in 1974.
But don’t count on it. Trump’s departure lifts a huge burden from Republicans. They are free. Their biggest fear had been Trump’s ability to dominate the GOP while exiled from Washington. When Twitter cut him off, it “castrated” him, Republican strategist Whit Ayres said.
Any follower of Trump’s tweets is aware of how effective they could be. Twitter was the perfect tool for his unconventional style of governing. It’s doubtful any rival for the 2024 presidential nomination could come close to matching him. He had 88 million followers.
In Congress and statehouses, Republicans had been wary of crossing him, even as he went off on tangents. For most of 2020, he was out of control. He fell apart. The difference from his first three years was obvious.
Trump’s campaign for a second term was pathetic. He spurned advice. He offered no agenda for the next four years. Trump thought he could rattle Joe Biden in their first debate by interrupting, attacking, and ignoring time limits. It didn’t work. Biden looked cool, Trump half-crazed.
Once Biden opened a lead, Trump scarcely paused before declaring the race had been stolen, though evidence was skimpy and remained so, week after week after week.
Then came the two big mistakes. Trump single-handedly was responsible for losing the special election in Georgia with speeches alleging vote fraud in the state. Republican turnout dropped — why vote if the system is rigged? — and Democrats elected two senators, giving them a Senate majority.
The events of Jan. 6 were worse. Trump’s speech on the Ellipse didn’t “incite” the break-in at the Capitol. Nor was it really an “insurrection,” though that didn’t prompt many quibbles.
One might ask what Trump had in mind in inviting supporters to gather in Washington, D.C., in the first place. Did he expect them to pressure Congress to toss out enough Electoral College slates to deny Biden a majority? Was he, not the Democrats, attempting to steal the election?
For Republicans, recovering from Trump shouldn’t be too difficult. What divided them was Trump’s claim to have won the election, but that squabble is over. The Republican split between conservatives and centrists was never as wide or fanatical as the gap that keeps Democratic centrists and leftists apart.
The media, meanwhile, see a deep layer of “Trumpism” that Republicans must deal with. And if they balk, it will keep the party from rising again. I doubt it. This problem consists almost entirely of Trump personally and his unpopular fixations. When he leaves Washington, it leaves with him.
With one exception: suburbs. For Republicans, reclaiming at least a 50-50 share of the suburban vote is necessary. At 40-60, they lose formerly reliable Republican states such as Virginia. “Trump has driven the Republican Party to near extinction in suburbs across America because most voters there find him repellent,” Bloomberg’s Joshua Green writes. “Republicans can’t build a solid governing coalition without figuring out how to fix their suburban problem.”
This won’t be easy. Trump’s absence will help. But it takes a particular type of Republican to fit today’s affluent suburbs. Social conservatives may not click, but centrists or soft conservatives will.
Fortunately for Republicans, Trump arrived in the GOP with few policy ideas of his own — a Biden-like trait. He had strong feelings only on trade and immigration. He began identifying himself with conservative plans such as withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal in the 2016 campaign.
This gives Republicans the joy of watching Trump skip town while leaving behind a collection of laws and actions they proposed or crafted and he endorsed. Two come to mind: the well-designed tax cut and sweeping deregulation throughout the bureaucracy that the press weren’t clever enough to uncover.
Unless Biden is a smashing success as president, Republicans are likely to capture the House in 2022. Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to believe the best way to keep the liberal extremists under control is by emulating them.
Besides Trump’s passing, Republicans are lucky to have Biden, Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer as leaders of the opposition. My advice to Republicans is: Relax. Things are looking up.
Fred Barnes is a Washington Examiner senior columnist.
