These two key Republicans have been tapped to take Trump's MAGA torch: conservative
Gladden Pappin, a national conservative dedicated to furthering MAGA’s success in the United States, tells New York Times opinion editorial director David Leonhardt that the second Trump presidency is "really focused and mature," and that there are two key Republican figures who may carry the torch whenever President Donald Trump leaves the political scene.
When Leonhardt asked Pappin, "if when you look at what Trump is doing, do you share any of my concern about what seems to be the hostility to democracy from leaders whose policy views you share?" Pappin, president of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, didn't seem to worried.
"I think the second Trump presidency has become really focused and mature, I would say, in its policy approach. So that’s a very positive development for American democracy. This is the state of play, as far as I see it," he said.
Pappin points to Trump's attacks on Harvard University in which he's withholding federal funding, launching numerous investigations, and demanding policy changes related to campus protests and antisemitism, as an example of what he sees as a positive development.
"To be a good liberal in the U.S., you have to support interpreting Harvard as a global institution that happens to be located here. And it’s the right, the new right and the Trump administration, that has tried to change the term of that," he says.
"So, from my perspective, it’s not a horrific executive branch attack on all core American institutions by pursuing this. To me, it’s asking a question that has not been asked in a long time."
When asked who best embodies the idea of MAGA and who will take the reins when Trump eventually leaves politics, Pappin cited both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"When the president selected JD Vance as his running mate, that was the option that indicated that Trumpism or the new right or these themes were really important — because JD had become a key element in a whole network of institutions that were trying to build up this idea," he says.
In explaining this idea as the "American moment," Pappin adds that "The secretary of state, when he was a senator, was really one of the first senators who gave an interview to American Affairs, which was called, I think, 'Common Good Capitalism.'"
Pappin says Rubio's focus on China has made him stand out.
"Rubio’s office was publishing reports on Made in China 2025. How do we put a new industrial policy together? What we want to see is more Republican politicians tilling this field and working in this area, and that’s clearly happening."
When asked 'What is the positive story that someone who considers themselves a national conservative will tell about the decade after Donald Trump?" Pappin replied, that America "will again become master of its own destiny."
