As Donald Trump leaves office the Republican party is faced with a new dilemma: its place in the 21st century. For nearly 40 years the Republican party has been an ideological party that consisted of 4 main groups, Libertarians, Evangelicals, big business interests, and Neoconservatives. Now, as Trump leaves office, it seems that a 5th member, right-wing populists, will either make or break the GOP in the 21st century.
While some may greet the new member happily it seems obvious that this new coalition is not nearly as stable as the previous one. Given Donald Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail and his constant criticism of foreign intervention, many would assume the Neoconservatives would be the first group to leave. However with people like Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, and even John Bolton, for a short time, in the Trump administration, it seems that there is still room for them to have a diminished influence in the party. Evangelicals have surprisingly been an even more resilient member of the Trump coalition when you consider Trump’s history. And while libertarians might enjoy the sidelining of the war hawks they must also be equally appalled by the silencing of the budget hawks. The GOP has gone from a party that talks about fiscal conservatism and does little about it to a party that doesn’t even pretend to care about it anymore. Yet the libertarians may find themselves without a place to flee to given the Democrat parties’ plans to spend tens of trillions of dollars in new programs such as the green new deal, Medicare for all, and free college.
The only group that seems to clearly be leaving the Republican party is the business community. With massive cuts to regulation, a corporate tax cut, and the Dow at an all-time high one might think the business community would be the most loyal of any member of the collision but as more and more multinational corporations bend to left-wing pressure or even become led by progressive executives members of the business community have quickly become hostile to the Republican party. With the debate continuing regarding big tech censorship it will be interesting to see if the Republicans maintain their laissez-faire attitude toward large corporations when they return to power. While many principled libertarians may be against forcing private companies to provide services indiscriminately to customers they may find their energy is better spent defending the liberties of individual Americans on other issues than defending the right of large multinational companies to pick and choose who they provide services to.