Here is where former President Donald Trump could have stopped his speech on Sunday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida: when he said, about five minutes in, “I want you to know I’ll continue to fight right by your side. … We’re not starting new parties. … We have the Republican Party.”
All good things. All true things.
Instead, Trump went on to say he might run for reelection.
Trump has a very important place in the Republican Party. But it’s not to lead it in office. It’s to shape it from the outside, free of the responsibilities of actually governing. He doesn’t need it, and he has done more than any other national figure in the GOP’s history already without it. He came out of nowhere in 2015 and revolutionized the entirety of one of two of our major parties, turning it from a party of open borders immigration and foreign acquiescence to a party of America First and working-class uplift.
No one did it before him. He did it with one campaign and one term in office. That it was only one term doesn’t make it a failure. It makes it an even greater success.
Trump’s lasting achievement will be leaving a blueprint for future Republicans to win national office. The official CPAC straw poll showed only Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with double-digit support to get the next presidential nomination. As countless public appearances have shown, DeSantis is following the Trump model: He’s governing a major state as he sees fit, keeping Florida’s economy nearly 100% open, and telling journalists to go screw themselves if they don’t like it. For that, his approval rating is nearly 50%— among Democrats! Statewide, he’s higher.
Trump is crucial to the party’s future and it’s clear where he fits. It’s just not clear if he knows it.
