Who’s the Republican Party leader? Who sets the tone for the party? Who defines priorities and, more importantly, who defines messaging?
These aren’t today urgent problems of answer but it’s time to look ahead, Blaze Media host Steve Deace said on American Family Radio Thursday.
“We are already operating in the post-Trump GOP in that Trump can never be at the top of a ballot, ever again, to carry us," Deace told show host Jenna Ellis.
"So, we're already one step into what's going to come next?” Deace continued. “Trump can never again define what an election is about and who it’s about.”
Donald Trump is still the president, a year after a dominant Electoral College win defeated Kamala Harris, the sitting Democrat vice president.
Trump even won the popular vote, a rarity for Republican candidates, because energized Republicans and independents were eager to reverse Joe Biden’s agenda of open borders, gender confusion, unchecked abortion and big-city crime.
A mandate from Americans? Perhaps, but a year later the outlook is different. Democrats were expected to win the governor’s mansion in Virginia and the mayor’s office – with a socialist – in New York. The polls told us that, and they were true.
But Republican Jack Ciattarelli was beaten badly in New Jersey when a closer governor’s race, perhaps an upset win for Republicans, was predicted.
In California, 63% of citizens voted for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to redraw legislative lines aimed at eliminating Republican congressional districts in the state.
“By handing Sacramento the power to redraw congressional lines for the next three election cycles,” Sophia Lorey, of the California Family Council, said, “voters have allowed politicians to silence communities of faith and conservative voices across our state.”
Looking for a leader
What’s the takeaway for Republicans?
Like him or not, Trump resonates with millions. He’s not the only Republican with a following who can’t help out in the future. Indeed, Charlie Kirk is gone, too.
“We don't have right now, anymore, the leader that was poised to step into part of that space on defining from a worldview standpoint, where we are going to go,” Deace said.
A
t age 18 he founded Turning Point USA (TPUSA) in 2012, starting from a garage and growing it into a major presence on high-school and college campuses.
He developed TPUSA into an enormous network that by the mid-2020s claimed thousands of chapters and millions of youth participants.
Kirk reframed conservative activism for Gen Z: it wasn’t just policy seminars, but large rallies and social-media content. He challenged them and many responded.
A likely Biden admin target
Through his organization’s rise, Kirk remained untainted, Deace said, all the while growing TPUSA in the unfriendly climate of Joe Biden’s administration.
“He ran the largest, most lucrative nonprofit in the entire MAGA movement, and not even a hint of any financial scandal at all when just to stand next to Donald Trump made you a target for prosecution for the last few years,” Deace said.
Kirk didn’t just stand next to Trump. He worked to advance Trump’s political goals, but he was more than an operative. He was a friend.
Trump once told Kirk he had “a good chance at being president someday.”
All that and “not even a hint of scandal. You don't think the Biden IRS went through Charlie's 990 form about 666 times? I'm guessing they did,” Deace said.
Two guiding lights are unable to impact the GOP moving ahead.
“I think we are wholly unprepared for what politics is going to be moving forward, starting in next year's midterms. We’re down our two best players moving forward. We’re going to have to figure out how we’re going to run this team,” Deace said.
If the team fumbles in the game of life, the result is far more treacherous than just falling back in the standings.
The conservative worldview – the Christian worldview – dropped the ball in Western Europe, and a door for Islam opened further, Deace said. He sees similarities in the United States.
“First, the church abrogated the public square and diminished itself. So that happened first. So the moral center is gone.
“Then the so-called (political) Right just becomes basically a conglomerate of corporate interests that just don't want to be controlled or have their profit margins limited by the state but have no real moral core whatsoever.”
The absence of a moral compass left conservatives a hot mess, “retarded and reactionary,” Deace said, to the point that they couldn’t win elections.
The Democratic process didn’t help them because they couldn’t organize themselves for success.
“They can’t vote their way out of anything in Western Europe,” Deace said.
In New York, Zohran Mamdani didn’t only become mayor of the city that suffered 9-11, he became the face of the Democrat party, Deace said.
“For about 10 minutes early this year, Gavin Newsom tried sanity, put Charlie on his show, tried going on Fox News. He got absolutely annihilated. So that's over. So, moving forward, Mamdani, and the stuff that used to just be hinted about on MSNBC, a televised insane asylum, is now the mainstream of the Democratic Party.”
That’s what Republicans have to confess and have to plan against … to fight.
The moral compass must return, Deace says. The message must be sincere.
He estimates the U.S. is a couple of decades away, perhaps less, from large-scale anti-immigration protests or conservative protests are stopped in certain parts of cities for fear of “serious disorder.”
GOP response has to be sincere
Avoiding those European trends requires a Republican party with a message from the heart.
If Republicans try to solve their problems though only fiscal aims and objectives they will not win, Deace says.
“If we cannot speak to the soul, we will not win significant elections anymore. You’ll even see us lose statewide in red states. There’s already Democratic governors in Kansas and Kentucky. I could see a Democratic governor winning my home state of Iowa next year if we nominate the wrong candidate.”
That moral compass has to include Jesus Christ.
“We're at the stage now where if you don't have some baseline connection to Christianity, and some baseline modicum of a biblical worldview, you're useless. And the reason why is because you won't truly understand what it is we are up against,” Deace said.
