TFormer Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney is “hoping she can rebuild” the Republican Party after Donald Trump leaves the political scene. Retiring Utah senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney reportedly hopes so, too.
Among the prominent Republicans who refuse to take a knee, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who is running for Senate on Trump’s party, could become part of a post-Trump Republican Party. It is claimed that there is.
“I think there are a lot of people who are very dissatisfied with the direction of the party, and some are on the verge of giving up,” Hogan told the Guardian. “I think we have to stand up and take the Republican Party back and get it back on track to a bigger tent, more of a (Ronald) Reagan party that can ultimately win elections again.”
Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairman turned MSNBC host, called for more dramatic action. There are only two choices here. Hogan is going to be a key player no matter what happens. Liz Cheney, (former Congressman) Adam Kinzinger, Joe Walsh, we were all sidelined and fortunately not infected with MAGA, so we have no idea what’s going to happen on November 6th. I guess there’s something you want to say. ”
It’s the day after Election Day, when President Trump will face Kamala Harris. If Trump wins, all bets are off. If he loses, the Never Trumpers could try to take back the party. Few people have any illusions about the magnitude of the task.
“It’s going to take six, eight, 10 years to overwhelmingly and decisively defeat the MAGA wing of the party,” said Reid Gehlen, son of the late Republican stalwart Rich Gehlen. . Galen is an advisor to George W. Bush and John McCain, who co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and now runs the Democratic coalition Join the Union.
“If you think about it, 85% of Republican primary voters this year voted for Trump. Now, is that a bad thing for the guy who owns the party and is a former president? Well, electorally it might be. Hmm, but it also says that MAGA is the one who actually chooses the candidates, right?
“If Trump loses, do you think there will be some decline? Yeah, but I don’t think it’ll be less than 50% and I consider myself a hardcore Republican or a MAGA Republican. I don’t think anyone wants to go back to the days of George W. Bush or John McCain or even Mitt Romney or even Nikki Haley.
“If the current ruling class wants to revive the party, they are going to have to make some pretty serious efforts to destroy the parts of the party that are anti-democratic and fundamentally dangerous to the country. Based on their track record, I don’t know if they have that kind of drive. Frankly, I don’t think so. I think they’re probably going to find a way to survive until they burn out naturally. Masu.”
Of all the nationally known elected or former elected Republicans, Ms. Cheney was the most proactive in campaigning for Ms. Harris in battleground states. Mr. Romney remained silent. That may make him appear well-positioned to form a post-Trump party, but Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist turned publisher of anti-Trump conservative outlet Bulwark, recently called his attitude “really crazy.”
she said: “‘Can’t we support Kamala Harris because we have to stay energized to help rebuild the Republican Party?’ No.”
Mr. Longwell said Mr. Trump and the Trumpists’ control over Mr. Romney’s party is too strong to tolerate such passivity.
“That may be (necessary) because … so much of today’s Republican Party is allowing themselves to be the tools of this really unstable man,” Cheney told a Wisconsin audience. , hinted that he was interested in founding a new right-wing party. But a fresh start is in order, especially as right-wing donors and advocacy groups have taken advantage of President Trump’s Republican grip and achieved landmark policy victories, including stripping the federal government of its right to abortion, among other things. would be extremely difficult.
Galen said: “All these front groups, whether it’s the Heritage Foundation (inventor of Trump’s controversial second-term Project 2025 plan), the Conservative Partnership Institute,[black money promoter]Leonard Leo, All of these people have spent decades and billions of dollars building this stuff. It does not mean that we should withdraw the These people are true believers. ”
Young donors, now led by J.D. Vance, a 40-year-old Ohio senator who once opposed Trump but was nominated for vice president with the support of billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk; So do strategists and elected officials.
“The world’s worst-kept secret is that J.D. Vance, (Texas Sen.) Ted Cruz, or (Missouri Sen.) Josh Hawley all have their own agendas and are desperate for Trump to lose. That means we’re doing it,” Galen said. “Trump is (almost) 80 years old. They’re in their 40s, maybe early 50s, and they want him to go all the way.
“But even if he loses, they won’t be able to completely distance themselves from him. They may try, but the truth is, we’re not just talking about the Republican Party, we’re talking about American politics as a whole. This is, at the very least, a 10-year program to get this back to some sort of health.
“Defeating Donald Trump is like surviving a car accident. It doesn’t mean you’re not in the hospital, it doesn’t mean you’re okay. It means they took the jaws of life off and pulled you out of the car. Masu.”
To Galen, wondering if the Republican establishment can take the party back is ultimately a waste of time — emphasis on “time.” Mr. Cheney is 58 years old, Mr. Hogan is 68, and Mr. Romney will be 78 next year. Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence, who was abandoned by the mob on January 6th but remains silent, is himself 65 years old.
“They’re the dinosaurs of the Republican Party,” Galen said. “The comet has hit and the clouds have covered us. Now we just have to accept our fate.”
Galen, who is in his late 40s, says publicly that he is focusing his energy on future fights. Nevertheless, he described a chilling experience in London when he was “sitting with Mehdi Hassan on Al Jazeera and berating Trump’s spokesperson in a debate.” It was fun, but Galen had his own conflicts. One of the panel participants, a young Trump supporter, bent over and said to him: “You know, we killed your party, and we couldn’t be happier about it.”
“The Republican Party is a nationalist, xenophobic party,” Galen said. “As far as the party is concerned, is it all the things that I grew up seeing around ideas like a moral and strong foreign policy, fiscal responsibility, personal freedom?
“All that stuff is gone. Gone.”
