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The GOP After Trump

Podcasts Nov 17, 2020 Sarah Longwell and Elmira Bayrasli

Joe Biden may have won the US election, but the vote was hardly the firm popular rebuke to Trumpism many had anticipated. What does that mean for a Republican Party that has tied itself into knots defending Donald Trump over the last four years?

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Sarah Longwell

Sarah Longwell is the founder of Republican Voters Against Trump, and the publisher of The Bulwark, a conservative news and opinion website.

Elmira Bayrasli

Writing for PS since 2016
3 Commentaries

Elmira Bayrasli is the co-founder and CEO of Foreign Policy Interrupted and the author of From The Other Side of The World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places.

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j. von Hettlingen Nov 18, 2020

In her interview with Elmira Bayrasli, Sarah Longwell, the founder of Republican Voters Against Trump, and the publisher of The Bulwark, a conservative news and opinion website, explains why she joined the Republican Party in the late 1990s - in the aftermath of Bill Clinton’s impeachment. While she wanted to prevent Trump from getting reelected, she understands why people who hate him, voted for him. She also gives her take on the party’s future in the post-Trump era.
In the past four years Longwell has been a leading voice of the GOP “Never Trump” movement, which sought to prevent Trump from winning first the Republican nomination in 2016, then the White House and finally a second term. While she failed twice in 2016, on November 3, 2020, her prayers have finally been answered. As a “Never Trumper” she hopes that the GOP would return to the traditional conservatism of limited government and basic principles she likes about. But it may well be wishful thinking.
Trump may have transformed the GOP, but he has never been a real Republican, and he stands in opposition to the party’s founding principle - that of a united country. Republicans see themselves as the party of Abraham Lincoln, and their founding principle is their commitment to holding the nation together. Trump is the most divisive president in America’s history, and there has not been a more divisive person in national politics since George Wallace.
Trump may have been defeated, but he has won some 70 million votes, posing a dilemma for the GOP - choosing between doubling down on Trumpism or moving away from it. The party’s down-ballot candidates did well in Congress, because some embrace Trumpism, without being Trump themselves. House Democrats lost some seats, but they still command a majority. In Senate Republicans have 50 seats to Democrats' 48. Democrats need to win the two Georgia seats in the January runoffs, in order to seize control of Senate and allow Biden to shape his presidency.
Although many Republicans - especially women - are clear-eyed about Trump, they have voted for him. Some have found themselves politically homeless, because they no longer have a place in the GOP they used to know - it has become Trump’s party. Many like Longwell, long for the return to the Reagan era. They believe in democracy, traditional values like civility, and the sanctity of elections. They do not quite fit in the Democratic party either, due to their dislike of Democrats’ progressiveness.
According to Longwell, ordinary Republicans do not think much about politics and follow the daily machinations of Washington. Instead they live in a surreal world and swim in a cultural soup of Trumpism, surrounded by friends, family, and social-media acquaintances who do live more exclusively in a right-wing-media ecosystem. Trump’s fearmongering tactic had worked. By warning against a “socialist” takeover by Biden, many voters - especially those from Cuba and Venezuela - fear that Democrats are the greater of two evils, and that mainstream media can not be trusted.
The problem with the GOP is that it lacks grand vision - its main achievements so far may well have been to make life difficult for Democrats in Congress, cutting taxes for the rich, and packing the courts with conservative judges. The party itself needs to reinvent itself. It remains to be seen whether the new generation of GOP leadership will be able to revamp the party. Since Trump took office, moderate Republicans left Congress in droves, because he is the antithesis of what their party stood for.
Apart from liberty, low taxes, free markets etc. Republicans have traditionally embraced US global leadership and the liberal order it established. As the US is seen as the defender of freedom and justice, Americans believe that they deserved respect based on how they acted. This has included cultivating friendships and alliances with like-minded countries, and forging common ground and moral, principled leadership on the global stage.
Although Republicans do not always agree with Trump’s “America First” agenda and his transactional approach in foreign polcy, they have been silent on many of his reckless actions, that have alienated friends and allies, and isolated the US from the international community. Now some Republicans are glad that he has been voted out of office, and they just hope that the toxic Trumpism, with which they do not quite identify, will lose its appeal once the elephant in the room becomes a diminished figure.
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