The US Republican Party’s Uncertain Future

The American Republican Party’s drift to the far right began with the emergence of the Tea Party faction in the 2010 mid-term elections. However, it did not become mainstream until Donald Trump won the Republican candidacy in 2016 and became President in 2017.

Since then, the Party has ceased to resemble the Republican Party of old. Rather, it has behaved more like a cult whose loyalty to Mr. Trump is almost complete and marked by subservience to the former President and a rejection of what used to be traditional Republican values and mores.

This has continued during the campaign to date and was crystalized in the first Republican presidential debate on August 23rd. 

While Mr. Trump, who leads other candidates by over 40 por ciento in Republican preferences, decided not to participate, he was what one observer called the “elephant outside the room”. Six of the eight debaters affirmed that they would support Trump if he won the campaign even if he is found guilty in one or more of his trials.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie strongly condemned the former president and called on Republicans not to reward Mr. Trump’s malfeasance by giving him the candidacy. Each time one of them mentioned Mr. Trump’s current travails, they were roundly booed by the audience, underscoring the strength of the former president’s stranglehold over the party’s core of voters and how marginalized traditional Republican voices and values actually are.

For all the fireworks in the two-hour showdown, the debate had the feel of what one CNN commentator called a “shitshow”. While candidates fought among themselves like children, nothing that happened in the debate is likely to turn the race on its head.

Indeed, the candidates displayed no new visions or policies designed to attract independent voters or disgruntled Democrats – voters they crucially need in order to win in 2024. 

Instead, many stuck to the old bromides of venting against abortion and calling for the dismantling of many government departments and institutions. Some called for the disappearance of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education. 

They also took no umbrage with Governor DeSantis’s policies of punishing teachers who teach “woke” ideas. They all seemed to agree with the call to make deep tax cuts, and Vivek Ramaswamy actually called for U.S. troops to engage in hot pursuit of cartels into Mexican territory to address illegal immigration and curtail drug inflows.

Mr. Ramaswamy, a businessman who sucked up much of the oxygen in the room as Mr. Trump’s apparent surrogate, called climate change a hoax, much to the glee of the audience. He called for unregulated fossil fuel extraction and use in order to make the U.S. an energy “power” again.

While Mr. Ramaswamy went off at the mouth quite regularly throughout, he was roundly put down by former Vice-President Mike Pence and former U.N. Ambassador Nicki Hailey as a dilettante with no experience and no knowledge of domestic and foreign policy issues. He in turn accused all of his opponents of being bought and paid for. While his policy proposals will not likely lead to his being selected, he did succeed in letting voters know who he is and what he stands for.

Mr. DeSantis, who earned the center-stage spot as front runner in Mr. Trump’s absence, appeared content to exit the arena without risking his second place standing in the polls. But he also did to separate himself from the rest of the pack or to gain ground on Mr. Trump.

In my opinion, Mr. Trump will be the candidate in 2024 barring unforeseen developments in his criminal trials of civil lawsuits.

This led many on social media to declare President Biden as the real winner of the Republican debate. Indeed, his communications team is so good that they managed to place an excellent pro-Biden campaign video on FOX right as the debate was beginning.

While this was a brilliant strategic move by the Democrat campaign experts, FOX did no favor to the Republican candidates by contrasting the President’s positive messages and images with the candidates’ own childish antics on stage.

Definitely a poor start for any campaign by Republicans to select a candidate capable of beating President Biden.

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Edición: Fernando Sierra