What happens when Trump dies? I many ways it will be an opportunity for Republicans to rebuild their Party on the basis of sense. The latest idiocy reported this morning regarding the decisions of Republicans in the U.S. Congress made me think along these lines.
All but 12 Republicans voted yesterday against controlling the cost of insulin, which 30 million Americans depend for life. The reason they gave was that the bill would give the government too much control over healthcare.
I should add here that the cost of insulin has risen tenfold in the U.S. over the past few years, whereas it has hardly risen at all in most developed countries.
I naively thought that the role of government was to protect the welfare of the people. I even thought that was implicit in the U.S. Constitution. I had not considered that Trump’s version of the Constitution sought to protect individualism and anarchy against all forms of sense and reality. One more example of the Republican Party bowing down to their self-proclaimed god, Donald Trump. All of which, begs the question, “what happens when Trump dies?”
I suppose, realistically, it could get worse, if that’s possible. We could end up with Ted Cruz instead! However, it is interesting to speculate what the Republican Party might look like after Trump disappears from the scene, one way or another. In other words, when Trump dies.
Is it possible that the Republican Party, and the majority of its currently mute constituents, could return to their traditional, and Founding Fathers’ concept, of providing a conservative balance to the Democratic Party? We need that balance. In fact, we need that balance from both sides. Unfortunately, they both have so badly lost their way that, currently, there’s no balance of any sort. There’s not even the structure of a seesaw to allow a balance.
However, I should clarify that this piece is about what could happen to the Republican Party. I will do the same for the democrats in a later blog.
The majority of Republicans, I think, are sensible, normal, conservative, patriotic in the old-fashioned sense, and a backbone of U.S. society. They are not the anarchistic, non-thinking, conspiracy-ridden, belligerent fanatics that Donald Trump has used to promote his dictatorial ambitions. Make no mistake, he doesn’t believe in them, or their ideas, he doesn’t believe in anything except himself, and he will ditch anyone, and anything, that doesn’t pay unquestioning homage at his feet.
The question, again, is what happens when Trump dies. It seems unlikely that he will just decide to disappear, or give up. His ego is far too big for that. So “when Trump dies” is the only other turning point in Republican politics.
So let’s imagine a Republican, conservative movement that re-invents itself in the image originally conceived by the Founding Fathers. It obviously can’t, and shouldn’t, be an exact copy of what they conceived. That would be stupid, because it would deny that circumstances had changed in the last 250 years. However, a conservative movement within the context of the current world, both foreign and domestic, is a concept that could serve the country well.
To use one of Winston Churchill’s favourite quotes, at least one of my favourites, “If you’re not a liberal when you are 20, you have no soul. If you’re not a conservative when you are 50, you have no brains”. In a country where the average age is currently 38.3, and rising, that quote fits the concept of a balance between liberal and conservative perfectly.
In some ways, it is the same concept as the original structure of the U.S. Congress and the British Parliament: A lower house that can bring in as many nutty ideas as possible, and an upper house of statesmen with longevity and wisdom who can direct those ideas for the benefit of the country’s future. Admittedly, neither the American nor the British system works particularly well at the best of times, and now is certainly not the best of times, but we are speculating, albeit positively.
I would suggest that the first priority of a renewed Republican Party would be to propose the re-establishment of the U.S.’s role in the world and, even more important, to recognize that there is a world out there beyond U.S. borders. Isolationism, advocated by Trump, and supported by current Republican policy, is not only stupid, myopic and self-defeating, it is totally impossible to achieve in today’s connected world. When Trump dies, Republicans could embrace the reality of our current world and promote the U.S. in a lead role, instead of hiding and reacting, which, in my opinion is the road to national demise.
When faced with adversity, you don’t pick up your ball and run home, you get actively involved and provide leadership. I am reminded of the similar stupidity of Boris Johnson’s bogus campaign to leave the EU. Cowardly, short-sighted and, ultimately, destructive to the U.K.’s future. The Republicans should learn from that. Trump and Boris are both on an ego trip that doesn’t include the welfare of their countries. It’s all about them.
The second priority, which is actually far more difficult to achieve, is the integration of American society. This is certainly not an historical role of a conservative party but, given the opportunity afforded the Republicans to re-invent themselves when Trump dies, and the fact that the Democrats have no idea where they are going and, in many ways, are actually promoting differences, it could be an interesting new role for them.
Those two priorities alone would revolutionize America, and allow the Republicans to provide leadership that is sadly lacking at the moment. Wishful thinking, yes. Impossible, maybe, but I would like to hope not. All it would take is for Trump to die, and that’s inevitable.
