Win Or Lose, Trump Has Rejuvenated the Republican Party.

When Richard Nixon lost his bid for governor of California in 1962, he bid farewell to both politics and the media assembled around him, noting that they wouldn’t have “Nixon to kick around anymore.” He was wrong, of course, and the national media would, in fact, have Nixon to kick around for more than a decade. The Republican politician would experience an astounding political rebirth in 1968, winning 49 out of 50 states in 1972 and, ultimately, resigning from the presidency in disgrace after Watergate. Such are the vicissitudes of politics. 

After some media outlets declared Former Vice President Joe Biden to be the victor on Saturday, President Donald Trump’s re-election bid would also appear to be over. Throughout this presidency, that same media has been abusive, careless, and consistent in their attempt to discredit and terminate his presidency. Hardly a day has gone by that President Trump has not had to eviscerate the inaccurate reporting of the “fake news.” He has built a reputation for frequently and bitterly sparring with some of the Washington press corps’ more hostile members. 

Still, Trump is nowhere near conceding the race, not yet ready to stand in a corner and deliver his farewell address. On Saturday, he reiterated his commitment to lodging a “legitimate” legal challenge to Biden’s Electoral College wins in a series of battleground states.

But by Saturday, the President had noticeably toned down the rhetoric from just a few days earlier, when former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani stormed into Philadelphia and promised to expose “the corruption of the Democratic Party” and “voter fraud.” The future, for now, is unknown—if not bleak.

Win or lose, however, the indisputable truth is that President Trump has made a profound impact on the Republican Party and on American politics itself—despite how both have struggled with his leadership. During the past four years, it was sometimes said that the Republican Party became the party of Trump, but it is more accurate to say that President Trump rejuvenated the party in ways that his critics could not have imagined. He has provided conservatives and a clear picture of the obstacles that conservative voters face, and may continue to face for decades to come, given a mainstream and social media that is brazenly partisan in its coverage of the news and political objectives.

That is why, if President Trump is ultimately defeated by Biden, the Republican Party will not go down to defeat with him. He has infused too much of his practical intelligence, drive, and moxy into the GOP.

[caption id="attachment_184062" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] The Lincoln Project.[/caption]

FIGHTING FOR WHO GETS TO BE REPUBLICAN

Never Trumpers take note: with or without your nemesis, the Republican Party will never be the idle club of self-serving elites that you are hoping it will be. President Trump has ended that possibility. It’s not just that he peeled away the traditional support of blue-collar workers from the Democratic Party; he has made the Republican Party a home for the American worker.

While Joe Biden is prepared to sacrifice traditional American jobs on the altar of green energy (despite it being far from certain that the “millions” of jobs promised in the fight against climate change will ever materialize), President Trump has prioritized American workers in all sectors—in particular the energy sector which has been under attack for decades now. Before he took office, Hillary Clinton famously sabotaged her prospects in 2016 by promising to put coal miners out of business. President Trump kept his promise to keep them in business. He also understood that appealing to blue-collar workers was not just an economic draw: it was cultural.

President Trump has ensured that the Republican Party remains a means for people of all races and ethnic origin to express their belief in liberty and their profound yearning for political and economic freedom.

Trump understood that average working folks were not obsessed with climate change—and they especially weren’t willing to lose their jobs because of it. These workers didn’t really want to hear about transgender issues, and they wanted to keep their guns and religion, thank you very much. The President was willing to speak to and on behalf of that culture.

Equally as significant, President Trump has also redefined the relationship of race to politics in this country. This election, he managed to earn unprecedented support from black voters—at least 12% support—cutting deeply into a voting block that was once solidly and unquestioningly Democratic. Trump has liberated non-white voters from the fiction that voting Democrat is somehow in their interest, especially given how many of those voters are business owners exploited by the Democratic Party’s defund the police rhetoric and its high taxation policies. 

Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell said that the President’s mission to reach out to black Americans has resonated, and that Republicans had better remember that. “I want to be very clear to all of the Republicans—keep the Trump playbook,” Terrell told Fox News. “Because that’s what drove me to the Republican Party,” he continued. “That’s why I feel very comfortable. But the Democratic Party has lost the black vote and they can’t play the race card because people of color have now joined the Republican Party.”

Another popular black conservative, Candace Owens, often talks about the “Democratic plantation” that existed in the days of slavery, and continues to exist today when progressives tell black people how they should vote. Owens recently noted: “What you're talking about in terms of the views and comments, we're talking about social lynchings that we're seeing play out today. You know, back in the days of slavery, black Americans were punished if they had the audacity to get up and leave and walk away from Democratic plantations, obviously severely brutalized and punished via lynchings.”

President Trump has ensured that the Republican Party remains a means for people of all races and ethnic origin to express their belief in liberty and their profound yearning for political and economic freedom. Of course, this is one of the ultimate ironies of the Trump presidency, since he has been consistently accused, without any basis, of harboring racist views and spewing racial hatred. Early in the 2016 campaign, the media set the tone for their subsequent treatment of him by making fanfare about him supposedly labeling all Mexicans “rapists.” (In reality, he was expressly referencing crimes committed by some illegal immigrants from that country). 

Hispanics, however, seem to be hearing an entirely different message than progressives and their media. Trump won up to 47% of the support of Hispanic voters in Texas, and about 45% in Florida.

Journalist Susanne Ramírez de Arellano explained it this way for NBC News:

“There is no such thing as ‘The Latino Vote.’ Cuban Americans in Miami are not Boricuas in New York or Orlando; not even the Mexican Americans in Texas are the same as the Mexican Americans in Arizona. Democrats do not understand this, but President Donald Trump and the Republicans do.

Latino voters, once again, proved in the 2020 election that they can't just be defined by the broad terms ‘Latinos’ or ‘Hispanic.’ Even though almost 15 million Latinos were projected to vote this year and nearly 70 percent of them voted for Joe Biden, Democrats still failed to attract enough of us in key swing states to claim a blowout win. On the other hand, Trump, talking anti-abortion and anti-socialism, bagged Florida by more than 3 percentage points—which was more than twice his 2016 margin, turning it a deeper shade of red—and grew his support among Hispanics in other states like Texas.”

The Democratic Party has moved further to the left, simultaneously advocating anarchy in the streets in the form of defunding the police, and economic dependence upon the government through unending handouts. The Democrats, now too busy placating the mobs energized by Antifa and Black Lives Matter and musing about socialist utopias, have become less relevant to the average people they claim to represent.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) said as much on Tuesday, anticipating a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 2022. Spanberger articulated a coarse but frank assessment that Democrats could be “f***ing torn apart” in the midterm elections if they think voters are warming up to the socialist utopia offered by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “We want to talk,” Spanberger said, “about funding social services, and ensuring good engagement in community policing, let's talk about what we are for And we need to not ever use the words 'socialist' or 'socialism' ever again. Because while people think it doesn't matter, it does matter. And we lost good members because of it."

The Republican Party has changed over the years. From its inception in 1854, when it preached a political doctrine of public works, tariffs, and anti-slavery, to its laissez-faire incarnation during the Gilded Age, and onward through Dwight Eisenhower moderation and Ronald Reagan neo-conservatism, the party has always managed to adapt to changing times without changing its essential commitment to liberty.

The same cannot be said of the Democrats today. 

[caption id="attachment_184067" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] President Donald Trump.[/caption]

FIGHTING FOR REPUBLICAN SPEECH

Throughout his time in office, President Trump has clearly identified social media as a clear and present danger to the free speech and association of conservatives. Both Twitter and Facebook recently censored the New York Post for publishing a story that suggested Joe Biden was guilty of political corruption and promoting his son Hunter’s “business” ventures in Ukraine, providing a clear picture of both Big Tech’s totalitarian tendencies and their status as acolytes of the Democratic Party.

Freedom is always under attack, and is always best defended by an unfettered expression of competing ideas and ideologies.

Although Trump has utilized social media like no other President before, and has been a prolific tweeter for years now, his use of Twitter and all other platforms is ultimately at the mercy of a liberal tech empire that promotes a progressive view of the world. Freedom is always under attack, and is always best defended by an unfettered expression of competing ideas and ideologies. That competition is increasingly being constrained if not smothered by liberal elites. Social media, once thought to be a boon to free speech, is quickly becoming its muzzle.

President Trump has set the Republican Party on the right course in a legislative quest to subject social media to the same rules as other media, and allow people to hold Twitter and Facebook accountable for libel. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), taking inspiration from the President, wants to overturn Section 230, an outmoded policy that protects internet companies from liability over material posted on their sites.

Before he won the 2016 presidential election, Trump had mused about forming his own media company. If he is unsuccessful in reclaiming the presidency, this may well be an objective that he should revisit, given his experiences over the past four years. With the exception of Fox News, conservative talk radio, and the cluster of Republican-friendly internet media outlets that populate cyberspace, the media has become a liberal Democrat monopoly.

If Donald Trump is brusquely returned to the private sector, there will probably be a piece of him that may feel a sense of relief—the daily battle with the media, the chronic harping about his intentions will be over. He may be (rightly) embittered that a leader who created a booming economy—a leader that produced the lowest black unemployment in history—should be persecuted by a pandemic that he could never have contained to the satisfaction of his critics. It will probably hurt that he campaigned so hard to keep his job while his opponent remained hidden in his basement and, when he emerged, provided every evidence that he was too old, too tired, and too weak to govern effectively as this nation’s chief executive.

But Trump, given his attitude and history, would get over defeat. He would move on and continue to make a contribution to American society.

The rest of us, meanwhile, would not be subject to the same ultimate tranquility if Biden becomes President. We are in for some difficult years— especially if the GOP does not retain control of the Senate. But those years will be made more arduous if the Republican Party attempts to disown the Trump years or his legacy, and pivotes instead to a Romney-like party of upper crust elitists. 

Still—we may not have to worry. According to reports on Monday, Donald Trump is considering another run for the presidency in 2024, which should keep him close to the party’s center, structure and policies for the next four years.