Posted on 12/24/2020 11:07:28 AM PST by RandFan
Denouncing the $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill as a parsimonious "disgrace" and hinting at an Alamo-style finish on Jan. 6, when Congress votes to declare Joe Biden the next president, Donald Trump is not going to go quietly.
The anti-Trumpers and "Never Trumpers" celebrating at Christmas 2020, in this "dark winter" of Joe Biden's depiction, are assuring each other that Trumpism and Trump are dead and gone for good in four weeks.
The future of the GOP, they suggest, belongs to the Republicans who resisted and renounced Trump through the last five years of his candidacy and presidency.
As for those cowards and collaborators who stood by Trump and refused to repudiate him, they will, in turn, be repudiated by history and the American electorate alike.
The wish, here, is very much the father to the thought.
For if the past is any guide, not only are the reports of the death of Trumpism premature, the probability is that Trumpism has put down roots in our national politics that are not soon, if ever, going to be pulled up.
For those of us of a certain age, a comparable situation arose at Christmas 1964. Barry Goldwater had just been crushed in a 44-state landslide, winning the votes of only 27 million Americans. The senator had carried only five states of the Deep South and his home state of Arizona.
The establishment saw in the crushing of Goldwater the defeat and rout of the "extremist" movement that had produced him. "The Party That Lost Its Head" was the title of a widely hailed post-election book by two Ripon Society Republicans.
The establishment consensus was that Govs. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, William Scranton of Pennsylvania and George Romney of Michigan were the future of the party, if it was to have a future.
What followed?
Richard Nixon, who had stood by Goldwater when the party's liberal elite abandoned him, would lead the GOP to recapture 47 House seats in 1966, take the presidency in 1968, and run up a 49 state landslide in 1972.
Thus began a period of GOP presidential ascendancy, with Nixon, Reagan and Bush I winning five of six elections from 1968 to 1988, until the first baby boomer president, Bill Clinton, arrived on the scene.
And while there are differences between now and then, there are many similarities.
Do the anti-Trumpers or "Never Trumpers" represent the future of the GOP? If so, where is the postwar precedent for this? No Republican who turned his back on Goldwater was ever nominated for president or vice president following Goldwater's defeat.
When President Gerald Ford put Rockefeller on his ticket after taking over from President Nixon, the Kansas City convention of 1976 demanded Rockefeller's removal as the price of party unity.
Rockefeller was sacrificed, as the right had demanded.
Four years after Ford's defeat, Mr. Conservative himself, Ronald Reagan, Goldwater's most effective surrogate in 1964, was nominated and won successive landslides in 1980 and 1984.
Other factors and forces point to the probability that Trumpism has a major role in the party's future.
Where Presidents Truman, Nixon, and George W. Bush left office with approval ratings in the 20s, Trump's approval rating is still in the 40s, where it has been for the duration of his presidency.
Second, the issues that propelled Trump to the nomination and the Oval Office still resonate with the American people.
Among them are mass migration, insecure borders and dependency upon foreign imports for the necessities of our national life.
Moreover, there is shrinking support for a foreign policy that has us tied down militarily in Europe, East Asia and the Middle East, to fight if need be, in the defense of scores of nations, few of which have a direct bearing on the national security of the United States.
Another issue Trump elevated and exploited that is more acute now than in 2016, is a distrust of the media, the "deep state" and the political, cultural and academic establishments that have alienated the 74 million who voted for Trump.
And if the past is prologue, the Republican Party will make a major comeback in 2022.
Consider. Two years after his smashing victory over Goldwater, LBJ and his party lost 47 House seats. Ronald Reagan, after his landslide in 1980, lost 26 House seats in 1982. After routing Bush I in 1992, Bill Clinton lost 54 House seats and the Senate. Two years after winning the presidency, Barack Obama lost both the House and Senate in 2014.
Is it likely Joe Biden will be celebrating his 80th birthday after making history by leading his party to control of Congress in 2022?
For Republicans, the nomination of 2024 is a prize to be sought.
However, if one has spent the last four years trashing Trump, it may be as out of reach as it was for Rocky.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
Never Trumpers are just the Sore Loser Jeb Bushers.
Short answer: No!
Besides, President Trump wasn't defeated. He won by a landslide that eclipsed even the one against Barry Goldwater.
He's not leaving, nor should he. Criminality by a treasonous domestic and international Cabal and their CCP allies should neither be triumphant nor rewarded. It should be thoroughly defeated and prosecuted - and so should those who aided and abetted it, no matter the political party.
There is no future for the gop.
If “Never Trumpers” are the future of the GOP, then the GOP will be a party without voters.
The grandfather of Trumpism opposes Trump?
Whatever live in your fantasy world. I’ve seen too many states taken over and Democrat communists installed which leads to a permanent Democrat majority based on illegals and refugees.
If you don’t fight your party from within during primaries you are not engaged.
As usual half of you didn’t read the article. Pat explains why Trump and conservatism have an enduring legacy which best not be ignored.
Pharoah thought he had it the bag also..
You mean Buchanan failed the litmus test. The litmus test is support for Trump.
It’s all good. 2022 and 2024 will fix it. March right along.
The future of the GOP is either Trumpism or the grave.
If so, the GOP has no future.
I have voted for my last Bush League Republican.
Pat Buchanan says Donald Trump is the future of the Republican Party - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/12/pat-buchanan-believes-donald-trump-is-the-future-of-the-republican-party/
Pat knows his history, however we now have Venezuelan elections on Dominion machines.
You’re wrong, my Freeper friend.
Political support for Trump, like any political belief system, can be real or fake.
The best time to test for fakery is when the political winds are blowing fiercely in the opposite direction. (In the current circumstances, the opposite direction means against Trump.)
The political wiseguys like Buchanan can and do make use of language to hide their fakery. But this is War. And in war things are black and white. No hiding place for subtlety; no refuge for nuance.
Anyone who hints that Trump might not win this war is not on Trump’s side.
The only question is: what motivates Buchanan’s anti-Trump core? Is it possible he took money from the enemy?
Ask this loon Robertson if he read the forensic analysis of the Dominion systems used in Antrim County Michigan? The clown probably has one clue about that report! Nor does he probably care. I used to like this guy but now I view him as dirt.
Bookmark
From Buchanan’s column on November 10th, 2020:
“From what we have seen so far, the prospect that the decision in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, or Georgia will be overturned does not appear high. Indeed, it seems a certainty that not enough electoral votes could be flipped from Biden to Trump to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral vote victory.“
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/blog/will-georgia-halt-the-radicals—revolution-/
The globalists bought by China have permitted China to steal our intellectual property and technology for years. They buy off our quisling politicians like Joe Biden and his coke-head loser son.
Trump called them out. He took a lot of flak for trying to put us first. He did not take a salary. The swamp quislings were lining their pockets. My consolation is that the King of Heaven knows the motives of all and will judge those in leadership who put themselves first and sold out the people the swore to represent.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.