by Ned Ryun
Regardless of how this election finally turns out—and we’re still weeks away from knowing the answer with certainty—it should be noted what President Trump was able to do in the last four years regarding the conservative narrative of the past several decades.
From what really was nothing more than an appendage of corporatism and vulture capitalists, Trump took the Republican Party and helped shape it into a broad coalition of workers and patriots that really does transcend race and ethnicities; call it America First Republican Populism.
He rejected the corporatism and globalism that had overtaken the GOP and returned the party and the conservative movement to its Goldwater and Reagan roots. This approach (to some degree the vision of Russell Kirk) focused on the importance of the republic, individual liberty, personal and national security, and the primacy of America’s interests on the global stage.
It’s a commonsense approach prioritizing the sovereignty of We the People and keeping America free from enemies both foreign and domestic. It’s a fundamentally different approach from the recent past for the party, and one I would hope any Republican or conservative going forward who seeks the mantle of leadership will have to accept.
But it’s more than substance: it’s also style. Trump also has instilled a steel spine into many Republicans. Rolling over for the Democrats and their propagandists in the mainstream media doesn’t work. Although some Republicans like Senators Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) and others will be more than happy to return to the Paul Ryan approach of “losing with dignity,” many will have no part in going back to the nauseatingly meek and humble ways that failed us.
It’s also worth noting that regardless of how the presidential election ends, the 2020 elections as a whole proved that Trump’s ideas win. We will probably hold the Senate and we picked up a minimum of 12 seats in the House in a supposed “blue wave” year. Take it a step further and look at the state level: Democrats spent hundreds of millions to flip the state houses blue and they ended up with nothing. In fact, for all of George Soros’ money wasted on Eric Holder, Republicans actually turned multiple state legislatures red and increased their margins in several others.
Republicans would do well to remember that: the corporatists might write big fat checks to advance their hyper self-interested economic priorities, but the GOP’s future electoral success lies with the America First coalition. President Trump began to lead the Republican Party away from corporate interests and into the hands of the people so that it would no longer be beholden to the demands of the few but working in response to the needs of the American people.
But these obvious lessons appear to be in question: the GOP, especially the Republican National Committee, without Trump in the White House to give the party a real backbone, is extremely susceptible to the corporatists and vulture capitalists who have been waiting in the wings to take back control of the party.
The Democratic Party faces a similar struggle because the corporatists are on the move there, too. The battle for the Republican Party is between the Corporatists versus America First, while in the Democratic Party it is Corporatists versus the Socialists. Corporatists cloud the real struggle among the people for the future of the country between a patriotic America First agenda and a socialist one.
Will the soulless corporatists win out on both sides of the aisle? It remains to be seen. But the Republican Party would do well to remember that Trump has shown it a new way, a way that can be extremely successful electorally. He has fought tooth and nail to build the broad workers’ movement that transcends party lines. We would be fools to abandon it.
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Ned Ryun is a former presidential writer for George W. Bush and the founder and CEO of American Majority. You can find him on Twitter @nedryun.
I do favor some aspects of the America First approach to the extent that it is meant to keep us out of reckless foreign adeventures (and to get us out of those that we are already in), to reduce troop levels, to reduce military spending to only that amount for truly national security needs, and to restore Congressional oversite over military and foreign affairs to prevent either the Cold War elite or the Pentagon from causing more mischief.
Otherwise, I do NOT share the xenophobia of the movement. To blame Latin Americans whose only CRIME is to flee their parts of the world that the U.S. made unlivable by its reckless military interventions is gross hypocrisy. Instead, we should make their countries livable so that they would want to return on their own volition. That way, we could save taxpayers’ money on a Berlin-like wall on the Mexico border and get rid of these vicious detention facilities where I.C.E. officials molest and abuse children of the undocumented.
So you do not consider illegally entering a sovereign country a criminal act. I, like you, do not consider America’s responsibility to police the world and gladly welcome home our troops. But I must ask why do you support pouring US money down foreign ratholes with a totally predictable outcome of failure? If foreigners want to immigrate they can do it legally or stay put where they are.
Well said 83ragtop50,
The elite ruling class who preside of open borders for the rest of us, refuse to do their basic duty to “protect the States against invasion” (Article IV, Section 4) otherwise insulate themselves from all the myriad of problems of their dereliction which fall upon citizens and legal immigrants. They typically live in gated communities with private armed security while some work to disarm citizens. And I don’t see those who judgmentally think it “xenophobic” to not allow our immigration laws to be broken with impunity and giving citizens to appease and accommodate them, opening their doors to anyone and everyone who would help themselves to their own dwellings. I’m sure that if they found “undocumented” residents in their homes, they would immediately take action to remove them or have law enforcement do it for them.
Besides not using and abusing our military in unconstitutional, illegal foreign wars of occupation and nation-building, “America First” means treating our own citizens and legal immigrants like we treat our own homes and families.
President Trump is not the first president to promote an America First foreign policy:
“Now let me make it clear that I believe there can only be one defense policy for the United States and that is summed up in the word “first.” I do not mean first, but. I do not mean first, when. I do not mean first, if. I mean first – period. I mean first in military power across the board. Only then can we stop the next war before it starts. Only then can we prevent war by preparing for it.” –John F. Kennedy, VFW Convention, Detroit, 1960
Apparently the globalist deep state didn’t want in then either.