I’m of the opinion that Republicans and Conservatives don’t give themselves enough credit. Too often I hear a narrative being thrown around in both casual conversation and talking heads that Donald Trump brought about a new age for the Republican party.
I disagree.
One thing that we seemed to lose sight of is the fact that Trump wasn’t a cause, he was an effect. He was a reaction to a left that had gotten so out of control that the people didn’t feel like they were being heard on top of the fact that this inability to hear them was based on a sense of elitism that the left had clearly garnered for themselves. In truth, you could probably look at him as a second tea party.
I only bring this up because many people view the current state of the Republican party as one of something dying so something else can move in, something that was started when Trump took office. For instance, over at the American Thinker, Brian Parsons wrote that “to save the Republican Party, the GOP must die”:
As of late, GOP legacies like Paul Ryan and Liz Cheney have decided that they will draw a line in the sand and say “you’re either with us or against us.” Denouncing the effective but unpolished populism of Donald Trump, they paint the future of the Republican Party as bleak should it continue down this path of uncouth but wildly successful policy. The answer, of course, is a resounding “bye Felicia!” Believing themselves the arbiters of conservatism, they have determined that populism has no place in the Republican Party. By their standards, conservatism amounts to congeniality and infinite surrender. Like a toothless dog that threatens to gum you to death, the GOP has no bite. And I’m left questioning whether it wants to?
It’s a sentiment I wholly understand, and all things considered, agree with. I’m just not sure it’s the death of the GOP that must occur so much as its transformation into something that it should be. I also don’t think it’s going to be a lot of the GOP doing something to make this transformation happen. It’s going to happen naturally, and it’s going to happen because the Democrats are going to do it.
A long time ago, Ronald Reagan explained his exodus from the Democrat Party by saying that he didn’t leave it, the party left him. A simple phrase that effectively describes and condemns an entire party that had lost its way over the course of the years. Today, that same explanation can be applied to a whole host of Americans.
Just today, I reported on how a third Sheriff had abandoned the Democrat Party and joined the Republicans over the fact that Democrats had abandoned the police in favor of appeasing radicals who call for their defunding. McAllen, Texas, a Democrat stronghold, just elected a Republican mayor.
(READ: It’s the Democrats’ Bigotry That Lost Them a Democrat Stronghold In Texas Mayoral Race)
From my perspective, it appears the Republican party is going through a state of metamorphosis as the “big tent” it often references itself as is becoming more and more a reality. Democrats are becoming alienated from their own party for one reason or other thanks to the extreme push to the left it’s undergoing. As it pushes further left, more and more voters are left out and wander into the Republican party they had previously cursed.
As more people enter into the party and actually begin learning about the platform with fresh eyes, they realize that they had been Republicans all along and just didn’t know it. They abandon the beliefs that allowed the extremism to flourish in the Democrat party in the first place and embrace the individualistic freedom that the Republican party was supposed to represent. The Republican party becomes truly what it’s always been. The party of the working class, the party of the minority, and the party of lower taxes and liberty.
As Republican ranks grow, the metamorphosis will push out the elitists in the party as well. Having just escaped from them, they’ll be none too willing to allow it to happen to their new party, and before you know it we’ll have a third tea party with Republicans who better represent these ideas being put into office.
I don’t think the GOP needs to die, it just needs to finish the process of morphing itself and hatching out of its chrysalis. It’s a process that started back during the first tea party and is becoming more and more refined as time goes on and new politicians and leaders come to the forefront.
The midterms are going to be a major test for both parties. Indeed, the Democrat party is undergoing its own metamorphosis. Whoever comes out on top will be the one who hatches and flies, but regardless, the GOP is going to finish its years-long process of becoming something more than the elites it was once comprised of, and we have the Democrats, in part, to thank for it.
