Not dead yet
Reports of the GOP’s demise — hawked by the left — are, once again, greatly exaggerated
To hear liberal concern trolls tell it, the presumed defeat of Donald Trump will be the end of the Republican Party.
“Today’s GOP Crackup Is the Final Unraveling of Nixon’s Southern Strategy,” said The Nation.
“Donald Trump Takes to Twitter to Stoke a GOP Civil War,” claimed Mother Jones.
“GOP Civil War: Trump Camp Officially Severs Ties with Ohio GOP Chairman,” said Talking Points Memo.
In The Washington Post, Robert Costa put the apocalypse in this tweet: “The election ends in 19 days. A grievance movement looms. Norms shattered, a city paralyzed. A party at war.”
I could go on for, according to Google, approximately 9,888,000 more examples. And to be fair, many conservatives believe we are having a Fort Trumpter moment, too.
But Trump’s tangles with other Republicans won’t develop into anything, because Trump will go away. And the Trump page in American history won’t actually change much in the Republican Party.
Assuming Trump loses by a large margin, which appears to be the likeliest outcome, Trump voters will hardly be in a position to lecture the rest of the party on what a great candidate he was, or how his ideas represented a promising new future, though they will spend a few weeks fuming at the so-called “Cuckservatives” who reject all identity politics — including white identity politics.
Meanwhile, mainstream Republicans, such as the leaders of National Review and The Weekly Standard, will not quite be able to resist the urge to say “I told you so,” and there will be bad blood.
But a week is a long time in politics. Remember when Donald Trump’s tax write-off was going to be the thing that swung the election?
Ancient history, and that was only three weeks ago. The midterms aren’t for two years.
What the pundits aren’t thinking about now is the factor that unites everyone on the right, from the open-borders-and-weed libertarians to the build-that-wall alt-right: loathing Hillary. And there’s going to be a lot to loathe.
Horrified by virtually everything Hillary Clinton says and does, everyone on the right will join forces be- cause our great common interest is control of the Senate in 2018. Midterm elections generally favor the party that does not hold the White House. Clinton will come into office with unprecedented disapproval rat- ings, and the map will hugely favor Republicans.
Five Democratic senators will be defending seats in red states, with several more looking vulnerable in swing states. Roll Call estimates that Democrats have cause to worry about perhaps 11 seats. Overall, Democrats will be defending 24 seats against only 10 for the Republicans.
By the middle of next year, whether Paul Ryan was sufficiently critical or supportive of Donald Trump will be about as hot a topic as the Volstead Act.
Besides, a post-election Trump will be so wacky — remember, the last few months have featured Big D
that supporting him won’t be like being a Barry Goldwater fan in the 1970s. It’ll be more like being a Limp Bizkit fan today.
Pundits who obsessively follow each twist and turn frequently make the mistake of graphing the future as a straight line out from today. Remember the spate of books claiming 2008 heralded Victory Forever for the Democrats? Books like “The Death of Conservatism” by Sam Tanenhaus and “40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation” by James Carville?
Today, the Democrats are at an 86year-low in both House and Senate seats. There are Republican governors in 31 states.
Republicans groaned about John McCain and Mitt Romney, then voted for both. Even Trump, despite being a lifelong liberal, previous Clinton supporter and apparent serial groper, is getting the vast majority of the GOP vote because he’s the most conservative option. Politics may be about ideals, but elections are often about picking the option you dislike least. No matter what, the party’s policy will be to the right of whatever the Democrats want.
Trump is a singular phenomenon, a one-off, a dazzling shooting star that just appeared briefly in the political firmament, called the ladies “pieces of a--” and disappeared.
He leaves behind no Make America Great Again party, no base in the House or the Senate, nobody to carry the banner of Trumpism, just a few Scott Baios and Gen. Mike Flynns.
No matter how angry Trump voters may be with Republicans for trying to save the GOP from disaster on Nov. 8, they’ll soon remember the basic rule of third parties in America: They represent wasted votes.