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GOP VS Trumpism Debate

January 14, 2021
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GOP VS Trumpism Debate

Be it resolved, the political survival of the Republican Party requires a clear and irrevocable break with Donald Trump and Trumpism.

Refusing to concede his loss to Joe Biden in November’s Presidential election.

Pressuring the Secretary of State to invalidate Georgia’s votes.

The President’s supporters storming the Capitol during the certification of electoral college votes.

You can’t say that he didn’t warn us but the lengths to which President Donald Trump has been prepared to go to prevent a peaceful, post election handover to the Joe Biden’s administration has convulsed the final days of his presidency and deepened the already profound divisions in America and also within the Republican party. But despite the profoundly anti-democratic events of the past two weeks supporters of Donald Trump say that it’s futile for the Republican Party to divorce itself from the man who last November enabled it to capture the most votes in the party’s history. They say that Trumpism is the Republican Party’s future, and that its populist rejection of elites and embrace of the concerns of disenfranchised middle-class voters its path to reelection in 2024.

Republican critics of Donald Trump respond that the disastrous events of the past weeks are the culmination of four years of leadership that have been consistently at odds with the principles of Republicanism, at enormous cost to the party and the country. They say that it’s not too late to rescue the GOP. The Republican Party can claim a bright political future if it rebuilds itself as an inclusive and culturally modern party of the centre-right that focuses on healing, not exacerbating, America’s divides

“We are seeing a Republican party at risk of evolving into a post democratic party. If it’s a party that is racist and environmentally disdainful, it has no hope. It’s future is going to shrivel into one of these reactionary, nationalist parties we see in Eastern Europe.”

– David Frum

“The trick for Republicans is to embrace Trumpism, but not Trump himself. His policies work, and with a friendlier face that is not so antagonistic to minorities and doesn’t shoot at the hip, it can be a real formula for the long standing success of the Republican part.”

– Stephen Moore

 

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