Ever since former President Donald Trump became the GOP presidential nominee in 2016, there has been a small but loud group of so-called Republicans in the media and the halls of power who have fervently dreamed of the day when he loses his hold on the party.
Until the vice-presidential debate, these MSNBC "conservative" pundits and figures such as former Rep. Liz Cheney and Sen. Mitt Romney could have hoped that if Trump face plants this year, the GOP will finally come back to its senses and put them back in charge.
Sen. JD Vance put that theory squarely to bed onstage in New York City.
WHY VANCE EASILY BEAT WALZ IN DEBATE, SOFTENING HIS IMAGE IN THE PROCESS
Though polling varies, by most accounts, Vance scored a win over Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (not to mention the wildly biased moderators) with his command of the issues and a surprising affability that even seemed to have Walz charmed at times.
But it was the substance, not the style of Vance’s answers that should worry the Never Trump crowd. Because Vance, for maybe the first time, is a major political figure who is not Donald Trump, but who can explain and embody Trump’s populism even in the loftiest forums.
The cover of Time magazine this week acknowledged this with a portrait of Vance and the words, "The New Right," which is, in fact, another term for the changes that Trump has wrought in the GOP.
Trumpian populism, or the New Right, has four essential pillars erected by Trump: anti-globalism, a strong border, energy independence and taking the fight to wokeness. On all four, Vance made the case.
The Ohio senator spoke of bringing manufacturing home with smart tariffs, balancing climate change with the need for cheap fuel, aggressive deportations of illegal immigrants, and has throughout his career been a strong voice against the excesses of wokeness in areas like education and gender.
It is a stark contrast to Trump’s former veep, the old guard, establishment-friendly Mike Pence, who notably, is not supporting his old boss this time around.
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If Pence served as a drawbridge to traditional Republicans, Vance is like a high castle wall, protecting the core tenets of the New Right from would-be interlopers wishing to return to the days of Romney and Cheney.
In Vance, we saw a future for Trumpian populism in the absence of its creator. And it's not just JD, all of the up-and-comers on the GOP bench largely embody the substance of the New Right, if not exactly Trump’s tactics.
When we look at businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; all essentially embrace the New Right. Even former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, whose supporters Democrats have hoped to pluck, realizes that the vast majority of Republican voters want Trump’s New Right policies.
Notwithstanding the fact that the GOP’s turn to the populist side is now complete, we see groups like "Republicans for Harris" touring the country, doing Zoom calls, and they clearly have some real money behind them. What they lack is any semblance of popular support.
Today, we can see that Never Trumpism was never really about mean tweets, or womanizing, or threats to democracy. No, from the start, the stalwart Never Trumpers opposed Trump and the voters' priorities and preferred policies.
On immigration, they want compromise, not a strong border. On trade, they want big global deals, not protectionism. On energy, they seek to appease the alarmists. And when it comes to wokeness, well, they really just don’t want to talk about it.
If you put aside the Never Trump movement’s weird sense of entitlement and nonstop moral outrage, you can understand why they are upset. Their brand of neoliberalism, the chamber of commerce GOP of the Bushes is no more.
On its face, it would seem that the best options for the Republicans for Harris are to simply become Democrats and try to keep the party of Jefferson and Jackson from careening into a leftist ditch. That's similar to the way they always played defense when they were in power in the GOP.
But, if they do that, they lose their value. They can no longer be used by the liberal media to pretend some large swath of conservative voters is against Trump. They become, in a word, irrelevant.
After Vance’s performance against Walz, it is fair to say that irrelevance is already upon the Never Trumpers. They saw the future and it is not them. The fight is finally over.
