Conservative columnist Bill Kristol is very worried about the lasting impact on the GOP of Donald Trump being its nominee, suggesting conservatives may need to replace the “Party of Lincoln” with something entirely new.
“I now wonder whether the Republican Party itself doesn’t get so tainted by Trump that you don’t have to think about the possibility of a new party or a really radically somehow revised or reformed party,” Kristol said during ABC’s podcast “Powerhouse Politics” on Friday.
Kristol, the editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, said that Trump’s identity politics could be harmful to the party’s image after the election. “Is any American under 35 will be interested in the Republican party after 4 or 5 months of Trump as its spokesman?” Kristol said.
Kristol has been trying in vain to get a third party conservative to run against Trump. He floated National Review writer David French, but he declined to run.
Kristol appears to still be holding out hope that Mitt Romney may run for a third time, even though the former GOP nominee has repeatedly said he isn’t running.
Even though he hopes Romney will run, Kristol conceded that “the odds of his winning would be slim.”
Romney is hosting a summit of GOP donors and insiders in Utah this weekend. He said on Friday that a Trump win could legitimize racism and create “trickle-down racism.” The same company that owns the Weekly Standard, Clarity Media Group, also owns the Washington Examiner.
