The Republican Plan for the Next Four Years Isn’t Normal
A national party whose leaders won a civil war in the 19th century and a cold war in the 20th looks to be little more than a promotional tool for Donald Trump at this point in the 21st.
Trump will lose his titular role as head of the GOP when he leaves office on January 20, but a party cowed by his grip on voters is poised to advance his interests even when he’s out of power. The Republican apparatus is coalescing behind its defeated leader and supplying Trump with a platform as he recasts himself as a kingmaker with ambitions of his own.
He’ll get plenty of help from outside the party structure. Conservative media will keep a relentless focus on Trump as he torments Joe Biden from exile. And at a grassroots level, Republican voters will likely a new political-action committee he’s created as they pine for him to run one his next campaign during the Biden-inauguration events he’ll likely snub.)
