Denouncing the $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill as a parsimonious “disgrace” and hinting at an Alamo-style finish on Jan. 6, when Congress votes to declare Joe Biden the next president, Donald Trump is not going to go quietly.
The anti-Trumpers and “Never Trumpers” celebrating at Christmas 2020, in this “dark winter” of Joe Biden’s depiction, are assuring each other that Trumpism and Trump are dead and gone for good in four weeks.
The future of the GOP, they suggest, belongs to the Republicans who resisted and renounced Trump through the last five years of his candidacy and presidency.
As for those cowards and collaborators who stood by Trump and refused to repudiate him, they will, in turn, be repudiated by history and the American electorate alike.
The wish, here, is very much the father to the thought.
For if the past is any guide, not only are the reports of the death of Trumpism premature, the probability is that Trumpism has put down roots in our national politics that are not soon, if ever, going to be pulled up.
For those of us of a certain age, a comparable situation arose at Christmas 1964. Barry Goldwater had just been crushed in a 44-state landslide, winning the votes of only 27 million Americans. The senator had carried only five states of the Deep South and his home state of Arizona.
The establishment saw in the crushing of Goldwater the defeat and rout of the “extremist” movement that had produced him. “The Party That Lost Its Head” was the title of a widely hailed post-election book by two Ripon Society Republicans.
The establishment consensus was that Govs. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, William Scranton of Pennsylvania and George Romney of Michigan were the future of the party, if it was to have a future.
What followed?
Richard Nixon, who had stood by Goldwater when the party’s liberal elite abandoned him, would lead the GOP to recapture 47 House seats in 1966, take the presidency in 1968, and run up a 49 state landslide in 1972.
Thus began a period of GOP presidential ascendancy, with Nixon, Reagan and Bush I winning five of six elections from 1968 to 1988, until the first baby boomer president, Bill Clinton, arrived on the scene.
And while there are differences between now and then, there are many similarities.
Do the anti-Trumpers or “Never Trumpers” represent the future of the GOP? If so, where is the postwar precedent for this? No Republican who turned his back on Goldwater was ever nominated for president or vice president following Goldwater’s defeat.
When President Gerald Ford put Rockefeller on his ticket after taking over from President Nixon, the Kansas City convention of 1976 demanded Rockefeller’s removal as the price of party unity.
Rockefeller was sacrificed, as the right had demanded.
Four years after Ford’s defeat, Mr. Conservative himself, Ronald Reagan, Goldwater’s most effective surrogate in 1964, was nominated and won successive landslides in 1980 and 1984.
Other factors and forces point to the probability that Trumpism has a major role in the party’s future.
Where Presidents Truman, Nixon, and George W. Bush left office with approval ratings in the 20s, Trump’s approval rating is still in the 40s, where it has been for the duration of his presidency.
Second, the issues that propelled Trump to the nomination and the Oval Office still resonate with the American people.
Among them are mass migration, insecure borders and dependency upon foreign imports for the necessities of our national life.
Moreover, there is shrinking support for a foreign policy that has us tied down militarily in Europe, East Asia and the Middle East, to fight if need be, in the defense of scores of nations, few of which have a direct bearing on the national security of the United States.
Another issue Trump elevated and exploited that is more acute now than in 2016, is a distrust of the media, the “deep state” and the political, cultural and academic establishments that have alienated the 74 million who voted for Trump.
And if the past is prologue, the Republican Party will make a major comeback in 2022.
Consider. Two years after his smashing victory over Goldwater, LBJ and his party lost 47 House seats. Ronald Reagan, after his landslide in 1980, lost 26 House seats in 1982. After routing Bush I in 1992, Bill Clinton lost 54 House seats and the Senate. Two years after winning the presidency, Barack Obama lost both the House and Senate in 2014.
Is it likely Joe Biden will be celebrating his 80th birthday after making history by leading his party to control of Congress in 2022?
For Republicans, the nomination of 2024 is a prize to be sought.
However, if one has spent the last four years trashing Trump, it may be as out of reach as it was for Rocky.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
Until the “never Trumper” Republicans In Name Only” are removed from office, Washington will remain deep state “never Trumpers”!
Right now, even those who may still support trump, are SPINELESS to do a damn thing about the theft that’s gone on.. HENCE WHY I wanna Scorch earth the entire bloody DC establishment to the ground.. AND MAYBE then we can try to start afresh.
BUT only once we’ve
A) INSTALLED Term limits for all government workers/politicians
B) CUT THEIR PAY at lest 75%, and stopped them ever voting their OWN pay rises into effect
C) GOTTEN RID of any form of lobbiests or PACs
It makes no difference. The fix is in. By allowing this theft of the presidency by the democraps to succeed, there will NEVER be another legitimate election in this country. Once they steal the 2 Georgia senate seats, they will finish off the constitution, and usher in communism. All you young “woke” people better learn to speak Chinese.
Baitfish – sadly, your comment makes sense to me.
My prediction for what comes next: we’ll see the perversion of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other agencies that report results on the economy. Like the old USSR where farm “quotas” were exceeded every year no matter how long the bread lines got, economic results under Biden will look wonderful no matter how many are miserable and unemployed.
If you think “that could never happen here” or “they wouldn’t dare”, I say stick around!
Hence why so many republican voters, are wondering “WHY BOTHER VOTING ANYMORE”..
That kind of attitude is destructive – especially when California, as well as Georgia and other states, have gone to jungle primaries. When Republicans don’t unite early behind the most conservative electable candidate (William F. Buckley’s criterion) we’re in danger of not making it to the general election, let alone winning it.
BUT when the GOP keeps SENDING us useless, rinos to vote for, rather THAN ACTUAL conservatives, what good is it to vote FOR tHE RINO, who does JUST AS MUCH wrong as the dems do???
Why are people who worked and voted against president Trump upset when now he is going to veto the Covid bill. He actually wants to give them more money but their own leaders, Pelosi, et al want to give them crumbs to thank them for voting for good old Joe. Why didn’t Pelosi accept the the larger bill 4 months ago? Let them eat cake.
Let us please stop calling this pile of pork (foreign pork, no less) a Covid Bill.
At least the House Republicans made a move to get rid of the Foreign Spending …… of course the Democraps did not.
House Republicans may have tried to dump the foreign spending, but the Senate Republicans (except for the stalwart 6) rolled over and played dead.
And how can Pelosi can it a Covid bill, when the covid relief is barely one=third of the total amount?
IMO they only made a showing, to make it SEEM like they are still on ‘our side’.. ITS just a bloody act.
They are not the future of the GOP, they are its end and untimely demise. As the Democrat Party embraces the likes of AOC and the Squad, promoting the candidacy of a disgusting purveyor of false doctrine in one of the Georgia Senate races, lying about their constituency to dominate and control, these Republicans continue their “high road” march of losing to win, accepting each legislative and electoral loss, judicial advocacy, and funding bill for planned parenthood as a moral victory in an insane justification while the society and culture are destroyed around them like the Taliban going after world cultural sites.
I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 because I thought he was an awful human being who was not going to advance conservative principles and I live in a state which was guaranteed to vote for an even more awful human being (I qualify Hillary Clinton as a human only through genetics). In 2020, I recognized the success of POTUS 45, and the unabashed evil of the media.
I agree. THE GOP is dead.. WE need to make it permanent, and bury it deep!
I’ll be happy if we can just take back our schools and stoip educating people beyond their brain capacities to process the information, who just become socilaist America haters in entitlement. If we do not educate our kids how to govern themselves, you can kiss the concepot of Ameriacn Self-government goodbye. As for Trump, he will bounce back faster than a Nixon in a Kennedy stolen Election where 100,000 dead people in Chicago climebed out of their graves to vote, By 2024 there will be way more Never Romneys than Never Trumpers after 4 more years of establishment screwing.
UNLESS there’s a bloody as hell revolution (which more and more looks highly unlikely to happen), we will NEVER take back our schooling. Or should i say the commie leftist indoctrination centers.
the gop will never get any more of my money.
mitt and the rest of the deep state traitors can go to hell!!!!!
So your money is going to the Democratic Socialists? Or worse?
I’m not sending ANYONE my money..
The Democrat Party, the MSM, Social Media, and the Supreme Court have established that an election can be stolen with no penalty whatsoever. The Supreme Court has given their blessing to steal both Georgia Senate seats, and so begin the end of America as a Constitutional Republic. The “elections” in 2024 will remove most of the remaining Conservatives in our government. At this point the future for my grand children is very bleak.
IT should also spell the END OF THE useless, feckless wastes of oxygen, known as the scotus..
I think most people, at least the ones I know, are not really keeping track of those who stand for election integrity and Trump, we are keeping track of those who do not, they are the ones who will stab you in the back. All those right now resisting Trump and his call for investigations, are lost and useless, this has long since stopped being about Trump, this is for fair, free and transparent elections, this is for the survival of our world as we know it.. These people are my enemies and are in the way of freedom. Trump’s part in this is he has been the ONLY man to stand up to the despicable elites who wish to enslave and control the world. If this fraudulent election is allowed to stand, we are done there will never be another fair election.
I no longer want to fight or even try to tolerate Romney, Christie, Kasich, etc. They can have whatever is left of the GOP.
Assuming Biden “wins” and is installed (not inaugurated) on Jan 20, I’m ready to de-register from the GOP and stay an “Independent” until and unless Donald Trump chooses to start a new “Party for the Rest of US”.
Trump could emulate Nigel Farage and Brexit. When he addresses the 74 million voters who chose him, he can, with just a word, cause 10s of millions of disaffected Republicans and Democrats to dump their GOP or Dem registration for new party that he names and leads.
What do we have to lose?
http://deplorabledavid.com/2020/12/mr-president-please-launch-a-political-party-for-the-rest-of-us/
I am certainly, coming the new year, CHANGING MY Voting party from GOP to indepentent..
Today’s “Republican” party embraces policies far to the left of the Democrats of the past. No spending bill is too wasteful &/or extravagant. No additional government agency is to be denied its authority to issue ‘rules and regulations’ which are clearly prohibited by Article One, Section One of the Constitution plus cause unlimited taxes, inflation, and indebtedness (slavery) to the Chinese government. No level of disloyalty to “We, the People” is sufficient to deny a candidate winning the Republican nomination. No blatant violation of the Constitution is too much to stop the advancement of corrupt “Republican” officeholders into leadership positions.
In the recent election, there was open defiance of state and local laws requiring a fair and reliable count of the legitimate ballots. Many never-Trumper “Republicans” joined the Democrats in celebrating the coming coronation of a pathetic senile man and his communist sidekick to the highest offices in the nation.
As long as rational Americans still have a chance to elect their political leadership, the Republican party, or a conservative party of another name, will endure to fight back against the relentless attacks of the totalitarians on the opposite political extremes; Nazis and Communists.
That conservative party will always have my vote.
That’s the thing. WE DO NOT have anything coming remotely close, to a ‘true conservative party’..
Are we really ready to allow this grand fraud, if Donald Trump is not kept on as
President after winning with overwhelming legal votes and the establishment
allows illegal votes to be counted to disenfranchise legal citizens, that calls
for pay back……..America faces ruin under traitor Biden and Communist
Democrats and RHINO’S, our freedoms and rights will be over. Ever what
Donald Trump does, follow………..William
The future of the GOP is with the 74 million people who voted for Trump. It is not with the GOP establishment, the Rhinos or the NeverTrumpers. These groups have still not heard the 74 million voters. Such a shame. The GOP will never learn.
As far as I’m concerned the GOP is dead. You can not spit in someone’s face and then expect them to continue supporting you.
There is no need for a ‘new’ party, it will be made up of the same people will it not ? I believe what people do not understand is that partys are made up of many people, with many differing ideas. It is just a matter of who leads that party. The Dems are/were made up of moderates and radical commies. Currently the radicals are calling the shots.
In the same sense, the GOP is made up of RINOs and conservatives and apparently the RINOs are calling the shots. That is what has to change.
The GOP needs to understand in no uncertain terms we will not support you as you are, the voice of the party as a whole must be a conservative voice. You can have RINOs but they must sit down and shut up.
As to those who always cry ‘but if we don’t vote R the Dems will get in’… well how’s that working out for you so far ?
It’s up to the GOP at this point, and it doesn’t have to end badly. Putting the fear of God in them that we will no longer support them at the polls should be enough. However, if they decide to commit political suicide then that’s on them, now isn’t it.
The Trump movement is actually a movement toward freedom and prosperity as opposed to tyranny and disparity. There is no difference between the “never Trumpers” and the communist-democrats. They are pro big government and therefore tyranny over the people. They are drunk with power and they are totally anti American. They will try to push aside the Constitution and likely as not in two years they will try to suspend elections altogether. The time for succession may come a little before or after that, but I can see it coming if the empty headed bozo Biden gets to do what he wants to do.
Years ago, there was a dramatic reversal of policies from candidates running for governor. The Dem was pro-life and the Rep was pro-death. I was very pleased to help put the Dem in office. The legislature was overwhelmingly Republican so only the best new laws were allowed by both the governor and the legislature; a win in my book.
🙂
That’s something i’ve been saying for months now. WHEN THE R’s in office, are just Dem lite’s, WHAT GOOD IS IT, continuing to vote for the R “No matter what”??? THERE IS NONE.. SO STOP voting R, just ’cause’..
I predict that if Biden has the House and the Senate, he will have them by very narrow margins and therefore when the bloodbath of 2022 happens, he will be left as an ineffective figurehead and in 2024, he will cease to be at all.
WHAT bloodbath??
Biden won’t be there that long! I’ll be surprised if he last until June of ’21! The DNC wanted Heels, she couldn’t get it on her own so they pushed her on Biden, one way or another (or another) he’ll be OUT!
I agree. He’ll last at most, six months, before she replaces him.
I am thinking that a lot of things that everyone has stated, will come true. I can’t think of anything that we can do to stop it. If the Judges, courts and Supreme Court does not want to correct the election of 2020, it will stand and Biden will be President
The start of the decline of America, began with the breakdown of our families. Fathers not being fathers, mothers working outside of the home and children left alone or with $2.00 a hour foreign caretakers. They stopped watch the TV that the kids were watching, living their own lives. They allowed the schools and TV to teach the children values and rights from wrongs. Misplaced values that became the norm. We elected officials without reading up on the background. Letting someone else do it, we left the door open for evil and corruption to enter. Now when the TV is unwatchable, schools taking God out and officials that are corrupt. we wonder what went wrong. You have to go back almost 100 years to see the beginning. We can’t turn back the clock. To begin the change, we have to start with us, cleanup our values, love and teach our children good values. Become active in our schools and clear out the officials. Hard work but the only thing that I see may work.
The decline started back in the 70s.. ITS Just been accelerated..
Barry Goldwater was a real Republican with real conservative views and credentials.
Donald Trump is an opportunist who switched from Hillary sycophant to nominal Republican, is no conservative, and plays on the worst instincts of some Americans.
Mr. Buchanan, you sully the memory of Senator Goldwater by comparing the two of them.
President Trump has not given up nor will i…..As long as he fights i will support him!
Greatest President in my lifetime!