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What Comes After Trump?

By Jonathan V. Last
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Now that the presidential race is over, it’s time to start thinking about what’s going to happen to the Republican party next.

Broadly speaking, there are two paths forward. The first is a fight for the future direction of the institution currently known as the Republican party. The second is an abandonment of this institution in favor of a new one.

As a general matter, institutions are undervalued and jettisoning an existing party in the quest to build an entirely new one is a task that should be undertaken only as a last resort.

So just as an exercise, conservatives ought to begin with the principle that they’d rather reform the GOP than start their own party. And then see if that’s possible.

To that end, I’d suggest starting with what Noah Rothman and then moving on to David Frum. Here’s Frum getting at what I think should be the point of entry for conservatives who were against Trump:

For all Trump’s many faults and flaws, he saw things that were true and important-and that few other leaders in his party have acknowledged in the past two decades. Trump saw that Republican voters are much less religious in behavior than they profess to pollsters. He saw that the social-insurance state has arrived to stay. He saw that Americans regard healthcare as a right, not a privilege. He saw that Republican voters had lost their optimism about their personal futures-and the future of their country. He saw that millions of ordinary people who do not deserve to be dismissed as bigots were sick of the happy talk and reality-denial that goes by the too generous label of “political correctness.” He saw that the immigration polices that might have worked for the mass-production economy of the 1910s don’t make sense in the 2010s. He saw that rank-and-file Republicans had become nearly as disgusted with the power of money in politics as rank-and-file Democrats long have been. He saw that Republican presidents are elected, when they are elected, by employees as well as entrepreneurs. He saw these things, and he was right to see them.

Of course, many conservative thinkers were already working in this space pre-Trump. But if nothing else, Trumpism should bolster their claim that modern conservatism needs reform. You probably cannot go back to the Republican party of 2008-or even of 2015-after this year.

On the other side, what do the Trump-supporters need to understand at the beginning of the Truth and Reconciliation Trials? (I kid! That’s a joke. Really.) (Probably.) For starters, there should be no crying about how “True Trump was never tried.” Trump supporters will need to acknowledge that Trump himself was a problem, rather than a solution. He was not an expression of civic health. He was not a defender of the Supreme Court. He was not a lovable scamp done wrong by the lamestream media. He was not worth supporting just because Martha Raddatz is an embarrassment.

Because-and this is important to remember-Donald Trump has lost this election by himself. It was not turncoat, neocon #NeverTrumpers who did him in. (They account for roughly 0.000009 percent of the electorate, on a good day.) It wasn’t because the party didn’t give him adequate support. (Trump insisted all along he neither needed nor wanted elite Republican support.) It wasn’t the fault of the hostile media. (Who, net-net, gave Trump more help than any GOP nominee in 30 years.) It wasn’t a “rigged system.” It wasn’t dirty tricks.

No, Donald Trump is losing for reasons that were both obvious and predictable. He is losing because he is a uniquely vulnerable and unqualified candidate who was so bad that he is getting pole-axed by the second-worst nominee in American history.

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