Last week's midterm elections were a requiem for MAGA
I was road-tripping through Minnesota last weekend and couldn’t resist taking the pic above from my car. Sorry about the resolution, but the posting of a worn out Trump sign on a dilapidated building was too rich with symbolism to bypass.
After several years of its mobilization and coalescence, after institutionalization by the Trump administration, and after one policy failure followed by another and then another, the MAGA movement is exhausted … and expunged.
Trump loyalists trying to tout tariffs and the righteousness of our war with Iran just got their political rear ends handed to them, some in states like Kansas, Mississippi and Texas where Republicans just don’t lose.
I’m as prone to gloat as the next guy and gladly broadcast my giddiness over the election results last Tuesday. It’s not so much that I’m pro-Democrat as it is that I’m anti-Trump.
From my perspective as a pre-Trump Republican, I’m hoping that my former party can see the light and understand the damage —no, carnage — that Trump has inflicted on the GOP.
The party has to cleanse itself of Trump’s ideological and political detritus. Examples?
On trade policy the GOP has to re-engage the principles of free trade that have been a cornerstone of conservatism since the 1950s and forward to the Reagan-Bush years
On immigration, Republicans have to go back to the days when they championed immigration.They understood that pro-immigration policies, including finding pathways to legalization for undocumented residents, were among the reasons that our economy prospered.
On alliances, Republicans have to go back to a time when they championed NATO, which Trump has said is “obsolete.” A unified front like NATO ensures that its members face threats side-by-side rather than in isolation.
Republicans need to redevelop a friendlier approach to our immediate neighbors Mexico and Canada. Why Trump feels he needs to pick a fight with Canada is beyond understanding.
Embracing science again would be a nice reversion back to the days when Republicans “had a great deal of confidence” in the scientific community. Dragging their feet on climate change and putting the scientifically-challenged Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in charge of Health and Human Services are, on the face of it, evidence that Trump’s party doesn’t give a damn about science.,
Trump and MAGA are worn out and used up. They’re helplessly ineffective and increasingly irrelevant. The problems they promised to solve are as burdensome as ever. It's time for some collective introspection by the GOP. It’s time to render Donald Trump politically useless and leave him to his self-glorifying dreams of building pretentious monuments and promoting his own silly brand.
There’s work to be done, Republicans. Time to get started
John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Republish with permission.
Photo: Minnesota roadside scene last weekend, John Tsitrian
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