The way forward just became much clearer
CPAC made it clear that trying to wrest the GOP from the Trumpists would be a more Herculean task than building a grownup right-of-center party from scratch
To list all the evidence dating back to 2015 of what a train wreck the Trump phenomenon has been would not be a productive use of our time here. Given the train wreck’s gathering momentum over the past four-plus months, an exhaustive list of moments of evidence within that time frame is likewise not necessary. The biggies, of course, have been
Trump’s behavior at the first debate with Biden
his blurtings about a stolen election at 2:30 a.m. on November 4
his 62-minute phone call to Brad Raffensperger
his speech on January 6 to the rally at the Ellipse
his tweet that day about Mike Pence lacking courage
the McCarthy pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago
Haley getting spurned when requesting an audience at Mar-a-Lago
this year’s CPAC taken in sum
Having set the table, let’s zero in on that last item.
There was, of course, the golden idol, with which several attendees were thrilled to be photographed, Ted Cruz’s new level of self-abasement, DJT Jr saying that the gathering felt like TPAC, Paul Gosar speaking at Nick Fuentes’s event the day before speaking at CPAC, Ron DeSantis’s dismissive tone about discussion of policy in lieu of the Left’s current energized state, Josh Hawley calling for a “new nationalism,” and, of course, the Very Stable Genius himself naming all those who voted to convict him in the second impeachment, and strongly indicating that they ought to be primaried (and calling Liz Cheney a warmonger, so as to reinvigorate Trumpism’s aversion to a coherent foreign policy).
This last aspect of the proceedings probably clarifies the whole event’s significance more than anything.
It crystallizes Trumpsim’s intention to drive actual conservatives and sane grownup from the Republican Party.
The Senators whom he named, along with Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger, whom DJT, Jr. called out by name, have made it publicly known that they wish to see the Republican Party survive as a repository for conservatism. It’s an admirable desire, and one I suppose I still have, although, like the desire I still have to be a guitarist in the same league as Wes Montgomery and Andre Segovia, it seems at odds with the way reality is going to play out.
Trumpist infection is not some Beltway problem to which grassroots Republicanism is immune. Consider the plethora of state and county parties that have censured those enumerated above, and others.
The task before us requires a two-track perspective. There’s an urgency to it, considering that conservatism is now dealing with two threats to the vision it offers, and the political clock is ticking toward the next election cycle. The Republicans/Trumpists and the Democrats/Leftists are each wasting no time putting strategy and candidates in place. On the other hand, we must plot our way forward with the utmost care.
The fact is that Trumpists are not wrong that the culture war still rages in America. When a university tries to restrict its rock-climbing class to people “of color” because that activity is generally regarded as a white person’s pastime, when Coca-Cola includes whiteness-awareness training conducted by Robin DeAngelo in its employee-training program, when a State University of New York education major gets suspended from his field teaching - until he completes a “remediation plan” - for saying “A man is a man, a woman is a woman. A man is not a woman and a woman is not a man” in an Instagram video, and when the Biden administration throws thousands of skilled-trade union members out of work to shut down the Keystone pipeline in the service of a mythical future free of fossil fuels, it’s clear that progressivism is no less a poisonous force than Trumpism.
We must not let the Trumpists co-opt this message. This requires a bit of a fine line. We must not go about it boneheadedly. Snark and an own-the-libs attitude must not be part of our position.
The following fact is going to have to guide us: There are statistical outliers - gay and even transgender people who embrace free-market economics, foreign-policy coherence, and even an understanding that Western civilization has been the blessing it’s been due to the primacy of family and commonly understood norms pertaining to male-female relations, and blacks who have no use for grandstanding about “systemic racism,” reparations and “equity.”
We must welcome these people. The fine points of any differences anyone has with them are not as significance as their being kindred spirits.
Also, we must make room for disillusioned Trumpists. They generally fly under the radar at this point, but they’re out there. Let’s meet them for coffee. Let’s get back to the common ground we had with them before 2015.
So let us not rush into this forming-a-new-party project. Let’s get the clarification of principles right first.
We don’t want to be standing on shaky ground. Lasting success requires that we know who we are.