The man who has dominated the Republican party and the American right for over a decade suffered a thorough repudiation in the midterms.
asserted
who → dominate → midterms
The GOP was utterly shellacked, surrendering House and Senate seats they once thought were impregnable.
asserted
they → surrender → seats
Trump has treated the Republican party like one of his own failed casinos, and in turn the Republican party, once the more ideological of the two main parties, has remade itself in Trump’s image.
asserted
party → treat → image
But, after this historic repudiation of Trump’s narcissism, wars, tariffs, and deportation agenda, where does the party go from here?
asserted
party → go → narcissism
It is going to have to put forth a candidate in 2028, and the ambitious aspirants for the presidency are quickly going to start exploring ways to differentiate themselves.
asserted
aspirants → go → themselves
So even as the Republican base and the vast right-wing media universe try to figure out how to think about what just happened and what comes next, the potential candidates are already beginning to think through the ten thousand practical questions—of funders and hires, of speeches and interviews, of travel and allies and especially policy—that will define their campaigns, and thereby reshape the party.
asserted
that → try → party
Can the GOP find a way up from Trumpism?
asserted
GOP → find → Trumpism
The fight within the Republican party over who is to blame for Tuesday night’s results is going to be a fierce, savage free-for-all.
asserted
who → blame → all
Some in the grifter-commentator class, like Matt Walsh, will be ready to blame Trump; others, not quite.
asserted
others → blame → Trump
But at an institutional level, expect a clash between, on one hand, the MAGA establishment that attempted to turn Trump’s insecurities, idiosyncrasies, hatreds, lusts, and idées fixes into a governing agenda, and, on the other, the America First movement that reflexively blames elected Republicans for everything.
asserted
that → expect → everything
Cruz will redouble his efforts to revive Tea Party–era conservatism as a return to “true” Republican values.
asserted
Cruz → redouble → values
Vance will start leaking to every journalist he meets in an effort to put space between himself and Trump.1 What he says or implies will indicate the strategic thinking of the right’s illiberal intellectual class.
asserted
says → start → class
Rubio, as always, will attempt to put himself at the dead center of wherever he thinks the party is going.
asserted
party → attempt → center
Meanwhile, America First bombthrowers like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene will hammer Republicans for acquiescing to Trump’s war of choice in Iran, for covering up the Epstein files, and for failing to deport enough immigrants.
asserted
bombthrowers → hammer → immigrants
It’s unlikely the kook right will rally behind another candidate the way they did around Trump; their participation in the coalition will likely be more ad hoc, less reliable, and more dependent on how much nuisance value they can extract from the larger blocs.
asserted
they → ’ → blocs
Longer-Term
Trump’s political death is going to leave a vacuum at the top of the Republican party, and the struggle to fill that void starts now.
asserted
struggle → go → void
Of course, Trump still has two years left in his term, but the befuddled and now-repudiated Old Man no longer possesses the menace and gravity he once had.
asserted
he → have → menace
So while he’ll capture headlines and make bad, even dangerous, decisions, he’s less electorally relevant than ever.
asserted
he → capture → decisions
The recent history of American conservatism suggests four possible pathways for Republicans:
1. ‘True MAGA Has Never Been Tried’
The media-intellectual-political apparatus that the American right has built over the past fifty years remains powerful.
uncertain
right → suggest → years
A good chunk of that system of podcasts, infotainment networks, think tanks, publishing houses, magazines, and so on has been thoroughly MAGAfied.
asserted
chunk → magafie → podcasts
These are the cadres that will maintain that true MAGA has never been tried.
asserted
MAGA → maintain → ?
Think tanks and other organizations like the Center for Renewing America, America First Policy Institute, the Claremont Institute, American Compass, and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute have made or remade themselves in efforts to elevate Trump’s instinctual illiberalism to the level of political theory.
asserted
tanks → make → theory
Committed to this hard-right ideology, they will push the GOP to maintain the MAGA trajectory—potentially abetted by Vance, replacement-level Republican senators with four or more years left in their terms, and the “based” under-30 staffer class that knows only Trumpism.
asserted
that → commit → Trumpism
One is Vance, who has worked himself into the leading position among the MAGA intellectual elite.
asserted
who → work → elite
If he tries to become the Acolyte of True Trumpism, then it’s a good bet there’s some energy behind that project.
asserted
it → try → project
If he tries to reinvent himself as a New New JD, then Trumpism is done for.
asserted
Trumpism → try → JD
The other indicator is the Heritage Foundation, which started as the intellectual home to Reaganism, then became a vestigial organ on an electioneering effort increasingly uninterested in ideas at all, and since Trump’s first term has become a sort of Higher Party School of MAGA.
asserted
term → start → MAGA
If Heritage swaps out its embattled president, Kevin Roberts, with someone of a less populist-authoritarian mold, then change could be coming for the GOP.
uncertain
change → swap → GOP
The MAGA grifters and podcasters will be at sea for the near future as they search for a new message.
asserted
they → search → message
Until the newly elected Dems are in office—and possibly for some time afterward—they will have relatively little to complain about.
uncertain
they → elect → little
But they are alert to audience signals, so when they land on a narrative, it will be a useful sign.
asserted
it → land → narrative
Although much diminished, there remains a segment of elected Republicans who are old enough to antedate Trump’s takeover of the GOP.
asserted
who → diminish → GOP
Fewer than fifty of the Republican House members who will be serving in the new Congress were already in office by the time Trump was first elected in 2016.
asserted
Trump → serve → 2016
On the Senate side, only twenty or twenty-one Republicans who served before Trump’s election will be back.2
asserted
who → serve → election
Still, there are enough of them that some in this subset of Republicans might prefer a return to the Reaganite–Tea Party conservatism that dominated the right from 1980 until 2016.
uncertain
that → be → 2016
It’d be an easy move for folks like Cruz, Rubio, and the conservative justices on the Supreme Court, as well as Dispatch-type conservatives who have already started asserting Trump should have tried conservatism.
asserted
Trump → start → conservatism
It’s a worldview the conservative movement and Republican party have spent decades insisting is the natural American Way.
asserted
movement → ’ → decades
Republicans will be tempted to lean heavily into Obama-era constitutionalism and demands for fiscal discipline as rhetorical devices to rein in Democrats and claim the moral high ground.
uncertain
Republicans → tempt → ground
America Firsters will scream bloody murder that the “neocons” or “establishment” are trying to reclaim the party.
asserted
neocons → scream → party
And at the same time, Republican demands for constitutional propriety and tight financial belts have been exposed as hypocrisy.
asserted
demands → expose → hypocrisy
…and 29 more, not listed.
The Aporia
