The Republican Party … at least nationally … has come to a fork in the road and it’s time to take the path away from Donald Trump.
Assuming Joe Biden wins the presidency after all legal appeals and investigations have run their course, how long does the GOP enable Donald Trump’s childish rants and lies … risking further damage to the party?
If the mainstream media was right, not only was the Republican Party going to lose the White House … but the Senate, more seats in the House and see losses down into state races.
President Trump was competitive, but not enough to win when Democrats drove enough people to the polls to win back the White House with a candidate who wasn’t all that exciting.
But Republicans should still hold onto the Senate and gained seats in the House.
Enough Americans turned away from President Trump to lose the presidency, but fewer turned away from the Republican Party and its belief in more freedom and less government interference.
I liked my tax break and don’t want to lose it. Thanks President Trump and the GOP.
But back to that fork in the road.
Some people voted for the president because they’re all in and would be all in four years from now.
Others didn’t like his antics, but agreed with his policies, held their noses and voted for him.
And it was not enough. Even Fox News has called the election for Biden.
How long does the party support him once legitimate avenues for appeal are done?
The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board said: “Whoever wins needs the other to concede to be able to govern.” And if Trump loses, “Trump’s legacy will be diminished greatly if his final act is a bitter refusal to accept a legitimate defeat.”
Could we actually see a scenario where Donald Trump has to be escorted out of the White House under protest?
There’s already buzz out there about Trump running again in 2024. If that happens, he’ll be the standard bearer of the party for at least another four years.
Not a good idea.
President Trump fired up the conservative base who loved his combative style.
But it’s not sustainable if you want to be the dominant political party. Both parties need their base and enough of the rest of America.
In Texas, President Trump got 52.2 percent of the vote … just what he had in 2016, when he had 4.2 million votes to Hillary Clinton’s 3.8 million votes. This year, the president got 5.8 million votes because turnout was so much stronger. But Joe Biden got 5.2 million for 46.3 percent.
So in Texas, in 2020, it was sustainable and enough to ward off 1.4 more million Democratic votes.
Let’s look at Georgia.
Trump won Georgia with 50.4 percent of the vote and a little more than 2 million to Clinton’s 45.3 percent and 1.87 million votes. The latest results as of Saturday morning showed Biden with 2.46 million votes to Trump’s 2.45 million.
Meanwhile, Georgia still has a chance to have two GOP Senate seats,
So is the Democratic vote driven by people who completely agree with their policies and values or was it driven by Trump hatred?
Conservatives should be thrilled with the Democratic Party’s shift further to the left and need to take advantage of it.
According to a foxnews.com story this week, Democratic House members argued progressive ideas like defunding the police and the Green New Deal were hurting them,
“We should have won big but you know the defund the police issue, the Green New Deal … those issues killed our members,” one frustrated Democrat was reported to have said.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said if “we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialized medicine, we’re not going to win” and his office confirmed the comments.
The party that walks the fine line between their traditional values and can still appeal to enough of the middle will win elections.
Enough people equate Donald Trump with racism and sexism and he’s done little to dissuade them when a few comments here and there would have been easy. Putting Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court was a great choice, but for many it won’t erase not offering strong criticism of white supremacists.
Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, was on television the day after the election, boasting about how many Republican women won House elections this week.
The Republican Party may be seen by some as the old white man’s party. It’s also the party of Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz.
The Republican Party needs to appeal to all Americans to have a future.
Donald Trump is no longer part of that future and the sooner the party makes that clear, the sooner it can build on the positives from this election.