Kathianne
09-29-2023, 05:39 PM
Insightful:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-reagan-would-beat-trump-in-2024-gop-debate-republican-party-voters-election-3144b7ee?st=ohuehb563yfkchf&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
OPINIONPOTOMAC WATCH
Tolstoy vs. Trump in 2024
GOP candidates need to tend to the needs of their family—the party’s voting base.
Kimberley A. Strassel
Sept. 28, 2023 6:13 pm ET
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The GOP presidential field might want to reread Tolstoy, rather than watch reruns of “The Apprentice.”
If the candidates on Wednesday stumbled through a messy second debate, it’s in part because they continue to obsess over Donald Trump. They’d do better to turn their full attention to the unhappiness in their own family, the Republican base. It’s past time to focus on the voters.
...
Mr. Trump’s success in 2016 derived from his accurate diagnosis of what then ailed that unhappy GOP family. A consequential portion of voters were alienated from a Republican professional political class they felt ignored their concerns, cowered to headlines, and ducked big disputes. They wanted a fighter, the hope that the battles could still be won, a promise things would get better. It wasn’t Donald Trump who coined “Let’s Make America Great Again.” That was Ronald Reagan in 1980. Mr. Trump simply resurrected the optimism, presented it in a pugilistic spirit, and united a fractured GOP to win the presidency.
This obvious point was lost amid the media’s rewrite of 2016. Mr. Trump’s victory, they said, was rooted in grievance politics, his siren song to the “forgotten” man, one that rested on race-baiting, class envy and bitterness. This analysis was as incorrect as it was convenient to the left, which used it to brand “MAGA” a dangerous movement. Yet a lot of Republican leaders bought into it and even doubled down, teeing up today’s politics of outrage and pandering. Weirdly, that includes Mr. Trump himself and partially accounts for his far angrier 2024 run. The party today is more united in what it dislikes than in what it aspires to be.
Today’s GOP is still unhappy, but for different reasons. Mr. Trump in 2016 gave the listless GOP a needed kick in the backside. No one looking at Wednesday’s stage doubts there is a new generation of fighters; no one doubts they are listening to voters. The Republican family is instead unhappy that it is again losing and losing big—in policy fights with the left, in public opinion, in consequential elections. As the polls show, and talks with average Trump voters attest, the electorate is also bone weary of the Trump drama. And it is beaten down by the negativity that radiated from the candidates standing—of all places—in the library devoted to the optimistic Reagan.
Consider this simple pitch, aimed squarely at the needs of today’s GOP family: Donald Trump was what the party needed a decade ago. Let’s give him—and his policies—our gratitude. Yet the threat from the progressive left is now critical, and its recent victories were largely enabled by its success at making him the issue. His theater, his legal troubles, even his age now stand in the way of an urgent GOP correction.
Our wins are eminently obtainable—our beliefs in freedom, and entrepreneurship, and national strength held by much of the nation. This country’s best days are still ahead of it, but first we have to win. That’s going to take a new generation of capable leaders. Here’s my plan.
The GOP candidates who keep crafting their every move around Mr. Trump are caught in the past. Today’s unhappy GOP family wants to be inspired by a new, optimistic future.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-reagan-would-beat-trump-in-2024-gop-debate-republican-party-voters-election-3144b7ee?st=ohuehb563yfkchf&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
OPINIONPOTOMAC WATCH
Tolstoy vs. Trump in 2024
GOP candidates need to tend to the needs of their family—the party’s voting base.
Kimberley A. Strassel
Sept. 28, 2023 6:13 pm ET
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The GOP presidential field might want to reread Tolstoy, rather than watch reruns of “The Apprentice.”
If the candidates on Wednesday stumbled through a messy second debate, it’s in part because they continue to obsess over Donald Trump. They’d do better to turn their full attention to the unhappiness in their own family, the Republican base. It’s past time to focus on the voters.
...
Mr. Trump’s success in 2016 derived from his accurate diagnosis of what then ailed that unhappy GOP family. A consequential portion of voters were alienated from a Republican professional political class they felt ignored their concerns, cowered to headlines, and ducked big disputes. They wanted a fighter, the hope that the battles could still be won, a promise things would get better. It wasn’t Donald Trump who coined “Let’s Make America Great Again.” That was Ronald Reagan in 1980. Mr. Trump simply resurrected the optimism, presented it in a pugilistic spirit, and united a fractured GOP to win the presidency.
This obvious point was lost amid the media’s rewrite of 2016. Mr. Trump’s victory, they said, was rooted in grievance politics, his siren song to the “forgotten” man, one that rested on race-baiting, class envy and bitterness. This analysis was as incorrect as it was convenient to the left, which used it to brand “MAGA” a dangerous movement. Yet a lot of Republican leaders bought into it and even doubled down, teeing up today’s politics of outrage and pandering. Weirdly, that includes Mr. Trump himself and partially accounts for his far angrier 2024 run. The party today is more united in what it dislikes than in what it aspires to be.
Today’s GOP is still unhappy, but for different reasons. Mr. Trump in 2016 gave the listless GOP a needed kick in the backside. No one looking at Wednesday’s stage doubts there is a new generation of fighters; no one doubts they are listening to voters. The Republican family is instead unhappy that it is again losing and losing big—in policy fights with the left, in public opinion, in consequential elections. As the polls show, and talks with average Trump voters attest, the electorate is also bone weary of the Trump drama. And it is beaten down by the negativity that radiated from the candidates standing—of all places—in the library devoted to the optimistic Reagan.
Consider this simple pitch, aimed squarely at the needs of today’s GOP family: Donald Trump was what the party needed a decade ago. Let’s give him—and his policies—our gratitude. Yet the threat from the progressive left is now critical, and its recent victories were largely enabled by its success at making him the issue. His theater, his legal troubles, even his age now stand in the way of an urgent GOP correction.
Our wins are eminently obtainable—our beliefs in freedom, and entrepreneurship, and national strength held by much of the nation. This country’s best days are still ahead of it, but first we have to win. That’s going to take a new generation of capable leaders. Here’s my plan.
The GOP candidates who keep crafting their every move around Mr. Trump are caught in the past. Today’s unhappy GOP family wants to be inspired by a new, optimistic future.