Veteran GOP strategist admits Republican ideas are wildly unpopular: ‘It’s an analog party in a digital world’

Despite his anemic approval ratings, President Donald Trump could nonetheless win reelection in 2020 if he aggressively turns out his base and Democrats don’t do enough to get out the vote. But turnout is about who actually shows up on Election Day — not who is winning the war of ideas — and according to veteran Republican strategist Stuart Stevens, the party winning overall public opinion isn’t the GOP.

There’s a reason why the words “interviewed on condition of anonymity” often appear in articles in which GOP insiders say negative things about their party: they are fearful about openly and publicly saying what they think or criticizing their party. But Stevens isn’t, and on Twitter, he has been speaking his mind about Trump’s presidency and the direction of his party.

Democratic ideas, Stevens tweeted, are much more popular than Trump’s. The conservative posted, “Taxing multi-millionaires is far more popular than a border wall. Medicare for all is more popular than a border wall. Free trade is more popular than a trade war, (and) somehow, R’s have granted that advantage to D’s. There are no new conservative solutions, only victim shopping.”

Stevens (who served as a strategist for Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign) is not endorsing Democratic or liberal/progressive ideas, only admitting that they are more popular — and he equated the GOP with a business that is trying to make money selling an antiquated product that there is a shrinking demand for.

“Companies that sell old products,” Stevens tweeted, “lose market share” and “fail” —and the GOP has become “an analog party in a digital world.”

When one of Stevens’ Twitter followers mentioned Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s surging presidential campaign, he didn’t say that she would necessarily win in 2020 — but he didn’t rule out the possibility either. Stevens tweeted that he has “no idea” if Warren will receive the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination or would win the general election. But he stressed that Trump is “destroying” the “credibility of any center-right argument” and that the U.S. is “headed to” a “very left era” if the “center-right continues to be defined by the corrupt” and “unstable governance of Trump.”