Axar.az presents an article “Whither The Republicans” by John Samuel Tieman.

I come from a long line of Republicans. In 1964, when I was 14, I carried a clear plastic cane. The gold water inside it honored the Republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater. I championed Senator Goldwater in a school debate. In truth, like most 14-year-olds, I was really speaking for my family. Disillusioned by Richard Nixon, I eventually became a social democrat. That said, I have always had a fondness for conservatives. They temper me.

Lyndon Johnson beat the bejabbers out of Barry Goldwater. It's just as well. The Vietnam War notwithstanding, President Johnson did more for America than anyone since Roosevelt and “The New Deal”. LBJ passed civil rights reforms, reforms concerning the environment and immigration, Medicare and Medicaid. He started VISTA, the Job Corps and Head Start. Goldwater was just too extreme. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And … moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue,” he said. Goldwater was a Major General in the Air Force Reserve. His comfort with the use of nuclear weapons was just too much for the country. The governor of Pennsylvania, William Scranton, called Goldwater's position on nuclear weapons and other ideas a “crazy quilt-work of dangerous positions.” More bluntly, Martin Luther King, jr., compared Barry Goldwater to Adolf Hitler.

Goldwater's divisiveness then is akin to Trump's divisiveness now. In theory, the Republican Party is the conservative one. However, there was nothing particularly conservative, or liberal or centrist, about Goldwater's nuclear policy. It's off the spectrum of liberal-to-conservative. Likewise, Trump isn't conservative. The liberal-to-conservative measure simply isn't applicable. On one hand, he is inconsistent about any number of policies, most recently his willingness to tolerate abortion. Policies aside, insurrection, the willingness to throw away the Constitution, disowns the norms of governance and therefore disowns liberalism and conservatism.

Whither the Republicans? By wedding themselves to Trump, they've wedded themselves to a candidate who consistently under-performs. Trump lost by 3,000,000 votes in 2016 but won only by a fluke in the Electoral College. He lost to Joe Biden by 7,000,000 popular votes. During his presidency, the Republicans lost control of the House Of Representatives in 2018. His support for this and that candidate has, at best, mixed results. Anyone see a pattern here? Elections and re-elections are all about addition. You expand the base.

After the disaster of the Goldwater run, the Republicans rethought their approach. Eventually, they adopted their “Southern Strategy”. The Democrats always had, in those days, a far right. Slowly, the Republicans started to chip away at that Democratic right. Senator Strom Thurmond became a Republican in 1964. From 1967 to 1971, George H. W. Bush represented the 7th Congressional District, essentially Houston, in the U. S. House. Texas Governor John Connally switched from Democrat to Republican. And on it went. To secure the support of white Southerners, Republicans used race-baiting code words like “states' rights” and “law and order”. The strategy worked. To a very large extent, the “Solid South” switched from solidly Democrat to solidly Republican.

Trump has employed no such strategy to expand his base. By denying he even lost in the last presidential election, he has denied the Republican party the opportunity to rebuild and expand. So where do the Republicans go from here?

As I write, the November election looks 50 / 50. That said, the momentum is all with the Democrats. The Republicans can't gain any traction but do gain one gaffe after another. If they lose in November, Republicans must reassess or possibly become irrelevant. They can start by reflecting upon one bit of their history. In the beginning, the Republicans were the third party. Anybody voting Whig this year?

The Republican Party has never been particularly ideological. The party today is a cult of personality. Perhaps it is time to eschew the person and reassert core conservative values. It's a start. Allow me to suggest these ten: 1) a commitment to individual liberty; 2) the sense that freedom is more than an absence of restraint; 3) limited government; 4) fiscal responsibility; 5) rule of law; 6) a veneration for traditional social arrangements; 7) a respect for the market's creation of wealth; 8) a fear that the market corrodes morals, ethics and values; 9) skepticism concerning utopian dreams; and lastly 10) a profound distrust of cults of personality. It's a start.