Even before multiple news outlets declared Joe Biden the apparent winner of the presidential election, the Republican Party was already starting to craft itself for the post-Trump era in preparation for the 2022 and 2024 election cycles.
But for Republicans, the Trump vs. Biden match-up was in some ways a sideshow to the main event: what the GOP will look like in the long term, after Trump leaves the political spotlight. Suddenly, the Republican Party is no longer exclusively Trump’s domain. He steamrolled the Mitt Romney-Chamber of Commerce establishment wing of the party over an extraordinarily short period of time; silenced, if not exiled, his intraparty critics; and molded the GOP’s entire foundation to suit his own political interests.
Those pesky Never Trumpers, however, have no intention of sitting on the sidelines and watching Trump permanently define the Republican Party for the next generation. They are loud and unapologetic, boast a significant superiority complex over those who don’t see the world the way they do, and retain significant influence due to the writing and television perches they have grabbed over the previous five years. And as much as the Max Boots, Mitt Romneys, and other hawks of the world hope the GOP reverts back to its pre-2016 status quo after Trump’s foreign policy influence fades, they aren’t taking this scenario for granted.
If recent reporting is true, this small but vocal band of Never Trumpers is putting its eggs in the Liz Cheney basket. The Wyoming congresswoman and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney received a nice spread in the pages of Politico several days ago, in which she was described as the principled right-of-center, pro-business, pro-intervention politician that used to govern the GOP before Trump bulldozed everyone in his path. She’s the type of Republican folks such as Steve Schmidt, John Bolton, and Jennifer Rubin can get behind — and indeed are getting behind.
But what is good for war hawks is not necessarily the same as what is good for the Republican Party or the republic itself. As much as people like to talk about Trump as an anomaly in political history, the rise of Trumpism wasn’t some unexplainable phenomenon that came out of nowhere. Rather, it was a reflection of the immense anger and frustration the base of the party became with an old guard responsible for reckless, endless wars of choice overseas, careless spending on the wrong priorities, the constant outsourcing of manufacturing, and dilapidated infrastructure at home. Trump may have demonstrated no competency in addressing any of these problems, but he was expert at tapping into the grievances those problems festered over time. While they may be hesitant to admit it, figures such as Washington Post’s Max Boot and the Lincoln Project’s Reid Wilson can blame themselves, in part, for Trump’s political career.
The future of the GOP could shake out in any number of ways. The party was going to experience an identity crisis even if Trump won. What Republicans have to decide among themselves, however, is whether betting on the neoconservatism and muscular interventionism of the past is a smart play for the party’s political prospects. On national security policy, the answer is an unquestionable “no.”
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
