President Donald Trump has radically transformed the Republican Party since his first election in 2016. In addition to pushing them to the right on issues like immigration and free speech, he has also reframed the organization from being a conservative body to an extension of his own personality. Now a former Republican and ex-Trump supporter is wondering: Are these changes permanent?
“t's an issue that a long, long-time former Republican like me has thought about now for years — gosh, the past 8 to 10 years,” Walsh said in a podcast appearance with The Federalist Society’s Quin Hillyer on Thursday. “Will the Republican Party ever go back to what it was before Trump? Will this party — is this party the Trumpy MAGA party now for good? Or will the good old party that I belonged to, the Ronald Reagan party — will that Republican Party ever come back?”
Hillyer replied by saying that, assuming he and Walsh live for roughly another 50 years, it is not likely to happen in their lifetimes — but also not impossible.
“In our sort of ordinary lifespan, maybe till we're 90 — will we see it return?” Hillyer told Walsh. “Yes, I think unlikely, but far from impossible. I think there's about a 30 percent chance. To answer the big question you started with — will the Republican Party ever go back to what it was before Trump? — I think there's about a 30 percent chance. Those aren't good odds from your perspective or mine, but they might be better than you think the odds are. But I am an optimist.”
Hillyer later speculated that he does not even give the odds a 30 percent chance, speculating that the Republican Party shaped by leaders like Presidents James Madison and Ronald Reagan, commentator William F. Buckley Jr. and Rep. Jack Kemp (R-NY) is unlikely to return.
“The conservative movement that believed in free minds, free markets, free enterprise, limited government, and government — when you do have it — that is closer to the people, less centralized, and less concentration of power in almost any way, except when it comes to national defense, which does need to have some centralization of power,” Hillyer told Walsh. “But other than that — free minds, free markets, traditional Madisonian liberalism, which is the foundation of modern conservatism.” By contrast, Hillyer said the Republican Party under Trump reminds him of ancient Rome during the rise of its first emperor after the fall of the republic, Julius Caesar.
“When you put it like that, Quinn — again, I'm a pessimist, I don't think in my lifetime that free-minds, Madisonian liberalism party ever comes back,” Walsh told Hillyer. “Quinn is giving it about a 30 percent chance. But when you say what you just said — all of a sudden I think, oh, maybe it'll be easier to come back, because it's all about devotion to one man. Well, get rid of that one man. That one man's not going to live forever. So then is it that simple? When that one man is gone — hip, hip, hooray — that former party comes back?”
Hillyer replied, “Oh, it won't be easy for the former party to come back. But once the one man is gone, it will be eminently more possible.”
In February, Walsh described the Republican Party under Trump as a “cult” because of its followers' overwhelming tendency to defend his unprovoked wars against Venezuela and Iran, as well as his unprovoked belligerence toward Denmark, even though they had said they were voting for him to avoid wars.
“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh said at the time. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Yet he noted that MAGA Republicans still support Trump, by and large, despite his flip-flopping.
“And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters?” Walsh argued. “What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”
He continued, “You’ve got no argument against people calling you a cult. And if he takes us to war against Iran, and you clap and applaud and throw him flowers, Trump supporters, I will be at the front of the parade calling you a cult.”