The former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney “hopes to be able to rebuild” the Republican party after Donald Trump leaves the political stage. Mitt Romney, the retiring Utah senator and former presidential nominee, reportedly hopes so too.

Among other prominent Republicans who refuse to bow the knee, the former Maryland governor Larry Hogan is running for a US Senate seat in a party led by Trump but insists he can be part of a post-Trump GOP.

Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chair turned MSNBC host, advocated more dramatic action: “We have to blow this crazy-ass party up and have it regain its senses, or something else will be born out of it. There are only two options here. Hogan will be a key player in whatever happens. Liz Cheney, [former congressmen] Adam Kinzinger and Joe Walsh – all of us who have been pushed aside and fortunately were not infected with Maga, we will have something to say about what happens on 6 November.”

  • Flying Squid
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    913 months ago

    If Trump loses, I don’t know that there will be a Republican party. The top people all hate each other and the only thing that unites them is brown-nosing Trump. They will tear the party apart all trying to replace him.

      • Flying Squid
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        223 months ago

        I’m trying really hard to not be a pessimist right now for what I think are obvious reasons. It’s not easy.

        • knightly the Sneptaur
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          103 months ago

          Realistically, I’m jazzed to learn that my post-2024-election predictions from 2015 are already coming true… we might actually get the good future where the Democrats are the right-wing bad guys.

    • Nougat
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      173 months ago

      I have to think there’s something going on behind the scenes to organize a schism in the GOP, no matter what happens in this election. I think it’s unlikely that Liz Cheney and people like her will be able to wrest control of the current Republican party away from the fart sniffers, so they’re going to have to split and make a new party.

      The outstanding question is “Why haven’t they done this already?” Maybe there’s just not enough solid support to pull it off ahead of the election, surely because there are a lot of people who are sniffing the farts out of fear, and they don’t want to burn that bridge yet.

      Pay real close attention after this election. Lindsey Graham is going to show his other face again, and a whole bunch of other politicians will, too. Yes, there needs to be a path to redemption, but that path is going to have to include resignation for the likes of Graham, Vance, McConnell, anyone who supported Trump, then very much didn’t, and then supported him again. Such people cannot be entrusted with elected office.

      • RubberDuck
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        23 months ago

        Nah, not enough money. The donor class is firmly behind trump and his endless tax cuts for the rich.

      • BarqsHasBite
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        3 months ago

        so they’re going to have to split and make a new party.

        They know if they split off, they will lose the party forever. Voters will never switch, they need the Republican brand. This isn’t about 4 years later, this is about long term.

        Trump brings out the crazies to the primaries like no one else. This is why the old school just keeps their head down, they’re just waiting for Trump to bow out and hopefully the crazies eventually stop showing up to the primary.

    • Admiral Patrick
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      153 months ago

      Yeah, that’s definitely a possible scenario. I’m just undecided if I should fear that inevitable power vacuum or just grab some popcorn.

      • Flying Squid
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        133 months ago

        Popcorn initially, because it’s an election loser in the short-term. Long-term, they just need to find another Trump.

    • Tiefling IRL
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      3 months ago

      The Democratic party will become the new right wing party. The question is whether the Republican party will survive in a new hyper fascist mode, or a real left wing party will pick up the pieces.

      My hope is for the latter, but realistically it’ll be the former.

    • @assembly@lemmy.world
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      123 months ago

      The entire Republican base will just vote red all the way down no matter who is in the ballot so I don’t think there is a scenario where the Republican Party ever dissolves. They could run a monkey for state senate in red districts and it would win office.

      • Flying Squid
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        53 months ago

        We don’t have to have a two-party system. There’s no law requiring the Republican party to stay together. It’s just in their best interest to do so. I don’t know that they’ll care about what’s in their best interest after Trump. They’ll be too busy tearing each other apart, something they’ve wanted to do since 2015.

        • Logi
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          53 months ago

          The two party system is an inevitable consequence of the FPTP election system. Replace that, and you can have multiple parties. Otherwise, you might get a short period of chaos with multiple parties which then settles down to the two winners.

            • Logi
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              23 months ago

              If you get a sane voting system out of all this then it just might have all been worth it. But it’s not how I would have gone about getting there…

      • @CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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        13 months ago

        You say that but how do you unite extremist and moderate views? You don’t, it’s unsustainable. So no the party won’t fail to exist but if it fractures enough, it will take time to reform. A pretty long time.

    • @Username02@lemmy.world
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      93 months ago

      I used to see it that way but now? I doubt it will be that simple. So what if Trump is gone and no other republican leader can fit his shoes? Do they even have to?

      Maybe it can be even more beneficial for the republicans to have a dead Trump. They can finally have complete control over his thoughts, his brand, image, his idealogy. With ai technology they can insert a nostalgic idealized version of Trump that he never was. More charismatic, more cohesive, malleable, and eternal. A figure like Jesus, like Mlk, like founding fathers. Who cares the real trump is dead? You can do anything with a base that is so hopelessly lost.

      • @barsquid@lemmy.world
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        53 months ago

        Somehow no other Repub is that shameless or that willing to behave like a schoolyard bully. The secret sauce is a guy who will say bigoted dictator shit out loud while doing an endless and uninterrupted parade of scandals.

        I don’t know why they are unable to reproduce it since the party is full of shamelessly corrupt bigots who should in theory be willing to try. I guess looking like a complete dipshit hurts their pride, whereas Donald is an actual dipshit so it comes naturally.

    • @capital_sniff@lemmy.world
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      43 months ago

      As long as there is a large concentration of a anti-education, anti-intellectual, and nationalistic brained people in easily gerrymandered areas there will probably always be a conservative party. The GOP has been playing their hateful scared brains like a fiddle for a good four plus decades, and they won’t go quietly into the night.

      Maybe if we didn’t have a poorly planned two party system they’d have far less actual power.

        • @capital_sniff@lemmy.world
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          23 months ago

          I could see your scenario being scary if the “reasonable” GOP members and funders split off and started sucking all the “conservative” liberal groups that normally vote Democratic but could be swayed to embrace even more neo-liberal policies.

      • Flying Squid
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        43 months ago

        I would be a bad Star Trek moderator if I didn’t quote Jean-Luc Picard:

        There will be a time when you will need to remember that no matter how bleak or unwinnable a situation, as long as you and your crew remain steadfast in your dedication, one to another, you are never ever without hope.

    • BarqsHasBite
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      13 months ago

      It really won’t be hard. Both sides (the trumpet and the old school) know they need the Republican brand to win. They’ll have a primary and then they’ll do what they do best: fall in line.

  • @TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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    623 months ago

    Trump happened because large segments of US voters feel disenfranchised and resentful, as they feel they have been left behind and that their lives have been made worse by the policies of the political establishment and experts. If said political establishment and the experts want to end the Trump movement and prevent something similar from happening again, they’re going to have to address the concerns of dissatisfied voters. I don’t really think either party knows how to go about doing that.

    I think part of the reason for that is there’s still significant discussion about what has caused so many Americans to become so unhappy with leadership, and you can’t really come up with a solution until you correctly identify the problem. I still don’t think the experts have a very good grasp on why Americans are upset. Until they figure it out, they can’t come up with a solution, and until they come up with a solution, movements like Trumpism are still very possible.

    • Tiefling IRL
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      313 months ago

      It’s really not hard to identify why, but billionaires will spend their life savings convincing people that late stage capitalism and oligarchy work.

    • @RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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      253 months ago

      Trump is happening because far right republicans realized after Watergate that if they wanted to get away with crimes in the future, that they needed to have news that presents “alternate” facts that are favorable to their narrative or that would at the least muddy the waters. Roger Ailes his plan worked basically.

      Without censoring his appearances, Trump comes across as petulant/weak/selfish/stupid/hateful/… Without censoring his history, republican voters would have known that he was a serial scam artist, serial adulterer, … Basically without that alternate fact media supporting rightwing skullduggery, there would never have been a president Trump.

      Imo it’s nonsense to claim that Trump getting elected, is happening because voters are angry because of mysterious reasons that no one can figure out, when those voters are so misinformed that they consistently vote against their own interests and believe stupid conspiracy theories that are being pushed to rile them up against the “other”. As long as that many people live in an alternate reality based on lies and hate, there is no helping them. So the challenge becomes: how do you bring them out of it and how do you prevent it from happening again in the future.

      • @TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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        53 months ago

        it’s nonsense to claim that Trump getting elected, is happening because voters are angry because of mysterious reasons that no one can figure out…

        That’s not exactly what I am saying. It’s more that there isn’t yet a consensus of what the root problem is. There are a lot of theories, sure, like yours. That’s one theory, but, confident though you may be that that is the exact problem, not everyone agrees, or at least they think there’s more to it than that.

        I think there might be some truth to your theory, but I don’t agree with the idea that these people are essentially doing fine, but they’ve been brainwashed into thinking they’re not doing fine. That it’s all just a result of some kind of mass hypnosis. That kind of erases the very real problems that many of these people do face.

        • @DancingBear@midwest.social
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          73 months ago

          One thing we can all agree on is that the problem that upsets voters has nothing to do with lack of healthcare, inability to purchase a first home, lack of a decent social safety net nor anything to do with inflation, money in politics or dark money corporate pak donations