President Donald Trump's so-called MAGA movement has long fueled over issues like foreign policy, and as such there has long been talk of a civil war dividing the Republican coalition. Yet as one conservative columnist recently pointed out, the future of the Republican Party and American democracy depends on that civil war ending — and the anti-Trump faction prevailing.
"If you spend any time watching right-wing media or following right-wing accounts online, you’ll know that MAGA has settled on one message to explain the midterm wipeout: It’s the neocons’ fault," wrote The New York Times' David French on Sunday. "The establishment holdovers from the dreaded George W. Bush years coaxed or coerced the president into the ruinous Iran war, and without the Iran war, everything would have been just fine."
He continued, "So what’s the solution? Double down on MAGA and 'America first' until the last molecules of the old Republican Party have been swept away. This is the reasoning that gives us Miller as the White House chief of staff."
He went on, "This narrative isn’t just wrong; it’s idiotic. Trump’s approval rating was trending downward well before the Iran war, and the collapse in support from Hispanic voters was almost certainly a result, in large part, of the administration’s brutal immigration crackdown, perhaps the signature issue of the MAGA movement."
French then said that the Republican Party should return to traditional conservative principles.
"If Trumpism isn’t conservatism, then what is conservatism?" French wrote. "George Will, the dean of conservative columnists, defined it well: The object of conservatism is to preserve the founding principles and institutions of the United States, including its ethos and its Constitution."
"I can think of few better paths back to popularity for Republicans than to adopt Will’s formulation," French continued. "In fact, constitutional conservatism can be among the most effective ways to combat the least popular aspects of Trumpism."
He went on to point out how, by doing this, Republicans could roll back Trump's ineffective policies when it comes to tariffs, Iran, civil liberties and Russia.
"Conservatives don’t have to change themselves to oppose Trump and reach the millions of Americans who’ve rejected the Republican Party," French wrote. "They simply have to, at long last, be themselves again."
Speaking with AlterNet in September, former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci blasted the current state of the Republican Party.
"I would say to you that they've become cowards" Scaramucci told AlterNet. "They've become self-aggrandizing. We started this interview by me saying that they only care about themselves and their own personal power, and they've become cowards. If they were not cowards, they would've sought Donald Trump's removal. If they were not cowards, they would've convicted Donald Trump in his second impeachment after the ridiculous, and I want to emphasize the ridiculous, Matthew, the ridiculous insurrection and the fomenting of that insurrection. If they were not cowards... But they're cowards."
