‘We have to blow it up’: can never-Trumpers retake the Republican party?
‘We have to blow it up’: can never-Trumpers retake the Republican party?
Republicans who have refused to bend to Trump insist the GOP can be rebuilt – but if he wins, all bets are off
The former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney “hopes to be able to rebuild” the Republican party after Donald Trump leaves the political stage. Mitt Romney, the retiring Utah senator and former presidential nominee, reportedly hopes so too.
Among other prominent Republicans who refuse to bow the knee, the former Maryland governor Larry Hogan is running for a US Senate seat in a party led by Trump but insists he can be part of a post-Trump GOP.
Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chair turned MSNBC host, advocated more dramatic action: “We have to blow this crazy-ass party up and have it regain its senses, or something else will be born out of it. There are only two options here. Hogan will be a key player in whatever happens. Liz Cheney, [former congressmen] Adam Kinzinger and Joe Walsh – all of us who have been pushed aside and fortunately were not infected with Maga, we will have something to say about what happens on 6 November.”
Nope. Assuming that Trump loses (which I had thought was a foregone conclusion, but genocide and stupidity is a hell of a drug).....
People like being on the winning team. And having lost the popular vote three times in a row, Trumpism will start to fade. Republicans will switch to the Democrat party, cementing the current rightwards shift. Imagine the Democrats being pro-border in 2020? 2022?
The only silver lining is that in 8 to 10 years we might actually see a progressive party emerge.
If Trump wins, we get faster genocide plus Fascism at home, so at least there's that to look forward to. Hope you're practicing how to be a straight cis white male Christian because it's going to be a rough time for everyone else.
But hey, Jill Stein won't get that check from Putin unless you vote for her and Cornel West has alimony payments to make.
There's a middle ground. The near future of the party is Ron DeSantis and JD Vance, the smoothed down versions of Trump. I don't think that works and someone new will come out fully populist with authoritarian edges, maybe a Hispanic man to help attract the working class beyond just white people, that seems to be the growth opportunity Republicans need and maybe that solidifies Arizona/Nevada/Texas for them while they put all the effort into the Blue Wall and North Carolina.
I think the JD Vance "I'm a never Trumper" clip has kind of killed the title, no?
Are they going to rebuild or they just trying to migrate and take over the Democratic Party? We have this tendency to assume that this country is going to be two parties just as they are right now for the rest of our time but parties have changed in America many times. Hell, these two parties virtually swap places once. Nothing says it can't happen again.
Hogan is a great example. I actually wasn't upset when he won his second term as governor, even though I disagree with some of his policies - but in general he did some good stuff for Maryland during his terms. Like getting masks and covid test kits in secrecy so Trump's idiots wouldn't confiscate them, as happened elsewhere in the country.
I'll never forgive him for axing the bike lane on the new Nice Bridge; we're stuck with that decision for at least 50 years now. But, by far, my biggest problem with Hogan is the "R" after his name.
Those third-party organizations are running ads that say things like, "I voted for Hogan, but not this time - we can't let the Republicans gain power in Congress." (Other organizations are noting "scandals" for the other candidate about taking tax breaks to which she wasn't entitled, but they seem overblown. It seems pretty silly coming from supporters of the party of George Santos, Matt Gaetz, and how many others...)
Trump happened because large segments of US voters feel disenfranchised and resentful, as they feel they have been left behind and that their lives have been made worse by the policies of the political establishment and experts. If said political establishment and the experts want to end the Trump movement and prevent something similar from happening again, they're going to have to address the concerns of dissatisfied voters. I don't really think either party knows how to go about doing that.
I think part of the reason for that is there's still significant discussion about what has caused so many Americans to become so unhappy with leadership, and you can't really come up with a solution until you correctly identify the problem. I still don't think the experts have a very good grasp on why Americans are upset. Until they figure it out, they can't come up with a solution, and until they come up with a solution, movements like Trumpism are still very possible.
NOPE!
If trump loses? Yeah. They will. He is already going extra senile and has spent the past eight years proving he can't get downballot candidates elected.
Which will get us back to bush era republicans. Basically buying us maybe another decade until they transition from "we need to fight crime and promote family values" to "let's murder some brown people and enslave women" again.
Within a year or two of Trump dying they will have the party back under control and everyone will be taking marching orders from only the megadonors again.
The only reason the maga nutjobs got tontake center stage was Trump saying the horrible shit out loud with the delivery that some people wanted to hear. The fact that nobody has upstaged him is a good sign that there isn't a similar person waiting in the wings to fill his role.