It's now been four days since our long national nightmare came to an end with the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. So far, there have been very few surprises. Biden has started doing exactly what he said he would do during his campaign. He's signed a national mask mandate requiring people to wear masks on federal property. He has halted the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the useless and ill-advised border wall. And he's rejoined he Paris Climate Accords, among other things. In short, he has moved swiftly to reverse some of the most egregious and dangerous decisions of the past administration. That's great news. What's even better news is that it finally feels as if this country is back on the right track, as if there's an actual adult in charge and making decisions.
With the Democrats firmly in control of both Congress and the White House, it raises an interesting question, though. Specificlly, what's next for the GOP? Can the Party of Lincoln now move past the stain of Trumpism and maintain its place as a viable national party? That, unfortunately, is yet to be seen.
My best guess at this early juncture is that a long and nasty civil war is in store for the GOP. It could last for years, if not generations. On one side, you have the "establishment Republicans," folks like Mitt Romney and the late, great John McCain, who, while conservative, basically uphold the traditional Republican values of fiscal responsibility, smaller government and lower taxes. On the other, you have the firebrands, the diehard Trumpers. These include people like Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Jim Jordan of Ohio. These people are both amoral and vicious. They long ago sold their souls and whatever principles they might have once have held in the greedy pursuit of raw, unadulterated power. They are immune to both truth and facts. And they have shown absolutely no evidence that they are going to fade away quietly, even though Americans soundly rejected them and Trump in the 2020 election. That makes them extremely dangerous.
So what happens now? In an ideal world, every one of Trump's allies in both the House and the Senate would be voted out in two years and sent home to face their constituents. Barring that, it seems appropriate to me to move to expel them from from their seats, then bar them from ever serving in government, or from benefitting from their connections by becoming lobbyists. These are the people, after all, who coddled Trump and supported his incompetence for four years. Worse, they actively worked to overturn November's election results and the will of the people. And by refusing to convict Trump during his first impeachment last year, by leaving him in place to continue to wreak havoc, they are, in no small part, at least somewhat responsible for the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6. In my mind, because of their willingness to collude with a madman, they have lost the right to continue to serve in their positions of power and influence.
A much more likely scenario, I think, is that Trump's supporters will eventually be driven out of the party by the establishment Republicans. If that doesn't happen, then they will leave and start their own party. There's already talk of a new Patriots Party, or perhaps a MAGA Party spearheaded by Trump himself. Can they succeed in this scenario? Maybe. After all, they already have a built in base of 74 million hapless, gullible Americans who were willing to support Trump in 2020. That's impressive, no matter which way you lean politically. But then, have we ever really had a successful third party, one that really lasted? We've certainly had attempts, including the Bull Moose Party in the early 1900s founded by the extremely popular former president Teddy Roosevelt. More recently, we had the Reform Party founded by eccentric billionaire Ross Perot after he drew 19 percent of the vote in the 1992 election, the best ever for a third party candidate. Both of these insurgent parties, coincidentally, lasted one, maybe two, election cycles at most, before they imploded due to in-fighting, or to their founders bowing out and returning to civilian life.
Both the Bull Moose Party and the Reform Party were built on the strong personalities and popularity of their founders. Once they weren't there to hold things together, their parties fell apart. And that's the problem with the current third party scenario. Trumpism isn't built on any real, definable principles. Trumpers, after all, HAVE no real principles to fall back on. Instead, Trumpism is built on the strong personality and enduring popularity of Donald Trump, at least among his base. It is, for all intents and purposes, a cult of personality. Once Trump tires of the hard work needed to build and maintain his party and his movement, I don't see him sticking around. And what happens then? Where does that leave his base? His most ardent supporters? I'll tell you where. Out of the mainstream and in the political wilderness.
It's possible for the GOP to survive Trump, of course. But to do so is going to take a heartfelt apology to the American people for supporting Trump and his incompetence for four years. It's going to take some real soul-searching, a purging (or at least marginalization) of its most extreme voices, and a recommitment to the core principles that made the party great to begin with. Can they do that? Are they willing to do the hard work necessary to rebuild out of the wreckage left by Trump? At this point, only time will tell.
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