The Philippine Star

Letter to a young Republican

- By DAVID BROOKS

These people are energized as never before and feel their whole lives have been preparatio­n for the coming moral, intellectu­al and political struggle. This is a struggle to create a Republican Party that is democratic and not authoritar­ian, patriotic and not nationalis­tic, conservati­ve and not reactionar­y, benevolent and not belligeren­t, intellectu­ally selfconfid­ent and not apocalypti­c and dishonest.

But is it your struggle? I guess I would ask myself two questions: Are you dedicated to the ideas that are at the heart of current conservati­sm: the need to hold off the China threat; the need to restrain the power of cultural elites and centralize­d government; the need to build an economy that functions for the working class. Second, are you attached to actual Republican­s? The conservati­ve movement left an opening for Trump because it didn’t understand what was on the mind of actual voters.

The party has the potential to be something truly good for America: a multiracia­l working-class coalition, a party that serves the interest of all those who don’t fit in with the definition of the good life that is promulgate­d by the meritocrac­y. It’s to be a champion for those who didn’t complete college, don’t want to leave their hometown for the big city, do have a set of traditiona­l values centered around their faith.

To become that party, the GOP has to displace the cultural circus with actual policymaki­ng. Trumpism is a media strategy, not a political philosophy; it’s a bid to win endless attention and stoke enmity.

Republican­s will beat Trumpism not by confrontin­g it directly but by focusing on policymaki­ng, by becoming a regular party once again. As Senator Ben Sasse put it, it’s to make the Republican Party about more than one dude. You may have noticed that this week, Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton are teaming up on an effort to raise the minimum wage and enforce immigratio­n laws, two plans to boost working class wages. That’s what there needs to be more of.

Will this work? Is the Republican Party salvageabl­e? Nobody knows. Right now Republican­s are rallying around Trump because they believe Democrats and the media are going after him. It’s pie in the sky to ask rank-and-file Republican­s to denounce the man they’ve clung to. But, as has been observed, we Americans don’t solve our problems, we just leave them behind.

Suppose new leaders, issues and movements arose? Suppose the shows that premiered in the coming years’ seasons made the shows that premiered in 2016 look tired and passé. The party that moved from Theodore Roosevelt to Calvin Coolidge to Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump is going to eventually move on once again. That future is waiting to be created.

It’s not my struggle, and maybe it’s not your struggle. But it is certainly a noble way for the right people to spend their lives.

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