Source: Politics<\/p>\n
As Donald Trump ponders another presidential bid, top Republicans have grown fearful about what they\u2019re calling the party\u2019s \u201clost generation.\u201d<\/p>\n
In conversations with more than 20 lawmakers, ex-lawmakers, top advisers and aides, a common concern has emerged \u2014 that a host of national and statewide Republicans are either leaving office or may not choose to pursue it for fear that they can\u2019t survive politically in the current GOP. The worry, these Republicans say, is that the party is embracing personality over policy, and that it is short sighted to align with Trump, who lost the general election and continues to alienate a large swath of the voting public with his grievances and false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. <\/p>\n
Trump has driven sitting GOP lawmakers and political aspirants into early retirements ever since he burst onto the scene. But there was hope that things would change after his election loss. Instead, his influence on the GOP appears to be as solid as ever and the impact of those early shockwaves remain visible. When asked, for instance, if he feared the 45th president was causing a talent drain from the GOP ranks, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush \u2014 perhaps inadvertently \u2014 offered a personal demonstration of the case. <\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for checking in,\u201d he replied. \u201cI am out of politics and life is good.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Trump and his allies, this is a positive development. Establishment Republican politicians, in their estimation, were out of touch with the popular sentiment of Republican voters. And the degree to which Trump helped with that reorientation has been a good thing: realigning the party with working-class voters and encouraging a new cohort of non-traditional politicians to run for office. Many in the party point to lawmakers like Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., Sen. Josh Hawley, (R-Mo.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Elise Stefanik, (R-N.Y.) as a new era of GOP leaders.<\/p>\n
But almost all of those up-and-comers have one common trait: they have embraced Trump. And for others in the party, that fealty is a sign of a party contracting, not expanding. The fear is that, as Trump lingers on the scene, aggressively intervening in internal party disputes and openly flirting with running again in 2024, it will only get more pronounced. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lost generation of conservatives and I think it\u2019s because they\u2019re forced to tie themselves to Trump,\u201d one Republican operative said. \u201cThere was an anti-Romney backlash, anti-Bush backlash\u2026 When you lose the presidency \u2014 whether an incumbent or challenger \u2014 the party distances themselves and that is absolutely not the case here.”<\/p>\n
Political parties have gone through concerns about talent drains before. At the end of Barack Obama\u2019s presidency, Democrats warned that the bench of up-and-coming lawmakers he left behind was painfully thin as the party suffered tremendous setbacks in Congress and the statehouses. Trump, too, oversaw the loss of seats down-ballot. But unlike Obama, he has not receded from public view after leaving office. And his continued presence has sparked fears \u2014 mainly, but not exclusively, from the GOP diaspora \u2014 about the narrowing of the party.<\/p>\n
“If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere,\u201d former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who left Washington for Wisconsin two years ago, said last week on the first night of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum\u2019s “Time for Choosing” series. \u201cVoters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence and mettle. They will not be impressed by the sight of yes-men and flatterers flocking to Mar-a-Lago.” <\/p>\n
In a clear sign Trump was listening, the ex-president responded with a four-paragraph critique the next day. \u201cPaul Ryan has been a curse to the Republican Party,\u201d Trump said. Ryan didn\u2019t respond back.<\/p>\n
Ryan\u2019s fear about Trump\u2019s grip on the party is shared by top operatives who believe that few aspiring presidential candidates will choose to run if Trump ultimately does make a bid. So far, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is the only potential 2024 contender who said he wouldn\u2019t wait around for the ex-president to make a decision first. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has flatly said she\u2019d defer to her former boss before deciding on making a run. <\/p>\n
As one close adviser coolly remarked: \u201cThey\u2019re all so afraid [of] going first maybe? Or saying something that sounds like they\u2019re moving on from the Trump years.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the congressional level, Trump\u2019s impact on the composition of the party has been visible in obvious and subtle ways. He helped orchestrate the ouster of Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney from leadership ranks, and either directly or indirectly drove numerous lawmakers to retirement. As FiveThiryEight noted,<\/a> \u201cof the 293 Republicans who were serving in the Senate or House on Jan. 20, 2017 \u2014 the day of Trump\u2019s inauguration \u2014 a full 132 (45 percent) are no longer in Congress or have announced their retirement or resignation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRational, good quality candidates don’t want to associate with people like Marjorie Taylor Green. So people just check out,\u201d said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who was a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project before stepping down in December.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just potential lawmakers; it\u2019s younger Republican voters, too. Research from Pew, as highlighted by The New York Times<\/a>, showed that \u201cfrom December 2015 to March 2017, nearly half of Republicans under 30 left the party…many returned, but by 2017, nearly a quarter of young conservatives had defected.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Steele, former Republican National Committee Chairman and Trump critic, said it is a \u201clegitimate truth for the party to confront.\u201d Republicans \u201crun a huge risk of losing not one but maybe a couple of generations of voters who are coming of age and maturing politically.\u201d<\/p>\n The trend could continue through the coming midterms. The possibility that Trump may be a drag on the party in competitive districts has worried even mainstream Republicans supportive of the former president. \u201cWhat is so concerning about next year\u2019s midterm elections for Republicans is we cannot win without the Trump supporters, and yet, if this continuing obsession with a stolen election and a fraudulent election continues, it will hurt us in our ability to attract some of those voters who abandoned Trump in 2020 and try to get them back, especially in the suburbs,\u201d said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado Republican Party chair and longtime party strategist.<\/p>\n When those GOP lawmakers not toeing the MAGA line have decided to take the plunge into electoral politics, they\u2019ve been drubbed. Earlier this month, Michael Wood, a combat veteran and small business owner who ran on an anti-Trump platform<\/a> in a special election to fill the seat of the late Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas) that he called \u201cthe first battle in this war to take back our party.\u201d<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t much of a battle. Wood barely registered with about three percent of the vote.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my darker moments, I think the only way the party is going to get the message is by losing and losing and losing,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n Others in the party share the fear that the incentive structures Trump has put in place will lead to unelectable candidates winning nominations and losing general elections. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have 50 car pileup in the Pennsylvania and Ohio Senate Republican primaries with people trying to out-MAGA each other for an endorsement, and it could end up us losing the 2.5 points we need to win in the end,\u201d warned Republican donor Dan Eberhart.<\/p>\n Trump allies scoff at the complaints, noting that Republicans lost winnable Senate runoff contests in Georgia while Trump wasn\u2019t on the ballot but candidates blessed by the GOP establishment were. They argue Trump has ushered in a new wave of MAGA-leaning lawmakers and has motivated previously untapped voters, who agree with his America-first, populist message, to head to the polls. A spokesperson for Trump did not return a message asking for comment. <\/p>\n But operatives say that Trump\u2019s impact down ballot isn\u2019t measured just electorally but behaviorally; that he has stunted the growth of GOP lawmakers by forcing them to adopt political personas that pigeonhole their careers. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) is held up as one prime example of this: a young Republican whose reputation went from that of a national security-minded rising star to a prominent Never Trump voice with limited room for intraparty growth. <\/p>\n Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich made the case that \u201cthere\u2019s plenty of room for moderates in traditional political terms\u201d with Trump still at the helm of the party. But, he added, there was only \u201climited room for overt, aggressive anti-Trump Republicans. Not because of Trump but because of the voters. Trump doesn\u2019t have to orchestrate the hostility people are running into.\u201d<\/p>\n Where evidence of a lost generation of GOP talent is hardest to see may be at the local level. In several states, Republicans who did not back Trump\u2019s questioning of the election results have either announced<\/a> that they are leaving office or face formidable hurdles for reelection. Others aren\u2019t entering at all. Many will be replaced by pro-Trump lawmakers, almost certain to get elected in heavily-Republican counties, states or districts. But in certain cases, that\u2019s caused the party headaches. Less visible are those instances when a Republican candidate that could have won a toss-up race decided not to run at all<\/p>\n Former Rep. Trey Radel \u2014 no stranger to being forced from elected office \u2014 said he personally knew people who had been inclined to run for commissioner posts but decided against it because of the pressures and scrutiny that comes with being in politics today. Radel blamed much of that on an unscrupulous media ecosystem and purity tests from both parties. But he also acknowledged that Trump\u2019s brand of bare-knuckled politics was a major factor too. <\/p>\n \u201cThere is a difference between authenticity and blatantly trying to fuck somebody up, or attack someone, however you want to phrase it,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile I think that Donald Trump has done enormously positive things for the Republican Party, the landscape because of the way that both parties are acting now, has radically changed since I was in office.\u201d <\/p>\n