Peter Wehner Correctly Read the GOP Tea Leaves in 2021

The pre-Trump Republican Party is dead. At the rate we’re going, it may never return.

In April of 2021 Peter Wehner, who is a conservative writer and was speechwriter for three GOP U.S. presidents, wrote in response to the violent January 6 insurrection (The GOP Is a Grave Threat to American Democracy):

“Unless and until Republicans summon the wit and the will to salvage the party, ruin will follow.”

Count me as a lifelong Republican who identified with what he wrote next:

“The hope of many conservative critics of Donald Trump was that soon after his defeat, and especially in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, the Republican Party would snap back into its former shape. The Trump presidency would end up being no more than an ugly parenthesis. The GOP would distance itself from Trump and Trumpism, and become a normal party once again.

“But that dream soon died. The Trump presidency might have been the first act in a longer and even darker political drama, in which the Republican Party is becoming more radicalized. How long this will last is an open question; whether it is happening is not.”

Almost a decade after Trump came on the scene, Mr. Wehner’s prediction of ruin in the party is playing out. The GOP spirals deeper into the dark abyss of anti-Semitism, Christian nationalism, white supremacy, and authoritarianism, and not the compassionate conservativism of the early 2000s.

The party has justified January 6 by sweeping the violent events of that dark day in U.S. history under the rug and moving on as if all is normal.

Mr. Wehner continued:

“The radicalization manifests in myriad ways, most notably in Trump’s enduring popularity among Republicans. Trump’s loyalists have launched ferocious attacks against Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach him for his role in the insurrection, even as national Republicans eagerly position themselves as his heir.

“Right-wing media display growing fanaticism, while public-opinion polls show GOP voters embracing Trump’s lie that the election was stolen from him. The Republican Party’s illiberalism, its barely disguised nativism, and its white identity politics are resonating with extremist groups.

“Will Saletan, in an article cataloging recent developments, summarized things this way: ‘The Republican base is thoroughly infected with sympathies for the insurrection.’ ”

Trump voters seem to have come to peace with themselves by justifying January 6 (or at least putting their fingers in their ears as they chant, “La la la la la”), and are determined no one within their ranks is going to have an individual opinion but, instead, walk lockstep to present a superficial unity within the ranks.

For many Republicans and conservatives, enough is enough. Peter Wehner was correct. If Trump wins in 2024, the GOP may have forever lost the opportunity to regain its party.

Background:

-NOTUS: Never Trumpers Get in Line Behind Harris, Whether They Like It or Not