Wednesday Morning Rant

When Barack Obama delivered the White House to the most radical faction of the Democrat Party and then his people took over the major institutions, many assumed that he had remade the Party, cemented it firmly and installed it permanently. The first is true, the jury is out on the third and the second is increasingly in doubt. He remade the Party, certainly, and remade it in his own image (or his shot-callers' images - the difference is perhaps irrelevant). The pre-2008 Democrat Party no longer exists, and hasn't for some time.

But that remaking - despite how deeply its product has infested the entire administrative state, the corporate world and the media complex - may be its undoing. Obama's Party takeover on the back of identity politics of all kinds is a hard thing to keep together, and its fractures have been showing for a while now. Outside of the strongholds, the Party is finding itself to be a tough sell. Obama remade the Party, but that remaking was not portable. Without Obama at the top, it doesn't have the juice. None of his successors could do it.

Part of the reason for his lack of portability is the nature of his coalition. Obama built a coalition of hatred. The various sub-groups all hate each other along with the designated enemy, and have no common purpose and often have little intra-group commonality. Trump's remaking of the Republican Party has been - to borrow a phrase - a "coalition of the willing" and that makes it distinctly different. One thing that I think will help with portability is that Trump's coalition isn't built on mutual and universal hatred, which has the potential to make it more coherent and robust.

That basic and important difference may not be enough, which is why I am pleased to see the focus from the "New Conservatism" on the future. Yes, we won in 2024. We won in 2016. We probably won in 2020. I think it is safe to say that Trump has remade the Republican Party in terms of its base, the expectations of that base, and the demanded policy positions and actions. The Party itself still hates him, you, me and everyone outside the Beltway's "good 'ole boys" network, but he remade it regardless and his coattails prove it.

But that remaking must survive Trump and those coattails must be be transferable. He is walking into office a lame duck and the mantle will be passed in just four years. The ground-level infrastructure that helped deliver 2024 needs to be expanded and refined, not left to languish because "we won." I like what I'm hearing along these lines from people like Charlie Kirk and Scott Presler.

Trump's picks will also be vital to the portability of his remaking. Getting good people in place to build track records and learn how to cut through the Gordian Knot that is Washington D.C. will be helpful for the administration and provide a proving ground for the future. I think Vance was a very good pick, in part because of his age and also because of his ability to handle the press and deliver the message. If he holds up, he and hopefully other picks will strengthen the new GOP for the next round.

The new GOP must hold its acquisitions and keep expanding and building for the future. Strengthen the new institutions. Give no quarter whatsoever to dissemblers in the executive ranks. Appoint people who could take over when the time comes. Do everything possible to put the GOPe into a corner and force it out.

And, most vitally, keep winning and keep delivering. Nothing succeeds like success.

posted by Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM

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