The Trump GOP is dead — the time to replace it is now

[Boats]

The Trump GOP is dead — the time to replace it is now
By: Nicole Russell - Washington Examiner - 01-20-21
Re: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...lace-it-is-now

As the nation prepares to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday, many in the Republican Party feel battle-tested and tired. The GOP is split into at least two factions: "Make America Great Again" extremists who feel defeated after a long battle and Never Trumpers who feel they may have actually lost the war altogether. Both may think it’s never been worse for the conservative movement. I disagree. I was saddened to see supporters of President Trump wave the U.S. flag as they breached the Capitol building on Jan. 6. However, the riot and the end of the Trump presidency must be a watershed moment to pave the way for a new conservatism to emerge.

The new GOP must do several things. First, they must condemn what happened on Jan. 6 and denounce the people who promised the election results could be modified through violence — or even through the debate that eventually took place afterward. For the few weeks leading up to the riot, Republican members of Congress and others called on vulnerable, angry Trump supporters to wave the proverbial flag of protest to change election results. While calls for violence weren't explicit, it shouldn't be shocking that fringe extremists were motivated to action by the heightened rhetoric of a "stolen election" and its consequences for the country.

Unfortunately, we know how that ended. Furthermore, the election results could not have been changed that night at the Capitol following debate or by Vice President Mike Pence. That was always a lie and unconstitutional. Republican members of the House and Senate who encouraged the electoral challenge on social media and other platforms must be condemned. We must hold these Republicans accountable for promising change through a legal myth and then slithering away in cowardice when destruction ensued.

Instead of putting loyalty to the Constitution and the country first, or even conservatism, they were blinded by loyalty to an obviously flawed man: Trump.

These people cannot be the face of the new GOP.

To be sure, the new GOP must support election integrity. Loose laws that allow for voter fraud must be changed at the state level. Voter ID and signature verification laws and sketchy provisions about mail-in ballots must be changed state by state. We have two years before the midterm elections — let’s get started now.

Trump’s unwillingness to concede and facilitate a peaceful transition to power right away cost him and the GOP dearly. When he finally offered to participate in a peaceful transition to power, it was too late. His inaction in his final days sealed a particularly harrowing moment in history for Republicans.

The new GOP must now work to change our reputation.

It’s not too late for conservatives to rebuild our party, even though we are weary from fighting among each other and Democrats in the rubble of the post-Trump era. We must dust ourselves off and ask: Who are we now? Who could we be? What do we stand for?

President Calvin Coolidge, one of my favorite presidents, said, “The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge. It is always simple and direct.” In that vein, I’ll lay it out clearly. The Republican Party has an opportunity to return to its roots: the time-tested, classical liberal ideology spearheaded by the Founding Fathers, implemented by great men, including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan.

The Founding Fathers created a unique form of government meant to serve the interests of the people, not politicians. The GOP had four years to do this and didn’t do it well. We have four more years to figure out how to do this at the state and national levels.

With this in mind, a new conservative party must commit to a few basic fundamentals and determine how to implement them so they stick. The GOP must reduce the size of the federal government, so that members of society begin to rely on each other as individuals, families, private businesses, and charities. Republicans must support state-level deregulation and tax cuts to stimulate the free market.

Going forward, promoting the cause of liberty must be paramount in every federal entity, whether it’s military spending, education, or foreign relations. Does this action make people more or less free? That should be the rallying cry of the new Republican Party. The answer to that question will always tell Republicans whether or not we are on the right track, just as the answer to that question informed the same Republicans that a riot at the Capitol happened after it was based on a lie, inside a distortion of truth, power, and what it means to love God, country, and freedom.

After four years of Trump, the Republican Party is wounded and weary. Some wounds are self-inflicted; others are not. But let this be a clarifying moment, not a moment in which we give in to defeat. Let us take stock of what we have done wrong, what we have learned, and vow to make it right.

About this writer: Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.