Defeating MAGA Is Only Half Done

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTDavid FrenchNov. 15, 2026, 6:00 a.m. ETCredit...Philotheus Nisch for The New York TimesThe Republican Party has not learned its lesson.Consider what’s happened since Nov. 3, when it faced the largest midterm electoral rebuke that any party has received since at least 1974.President Trump elevated Stephen Miller to chief of staff, the man who is more responsible than any other person aside from Trump for the brutal immigration crackdown that may have alienated Hispanic voters for a generation.House Republicans made Jim Jordan of Ohio the new minority leader. Jordan, for those who don’t follow these things closely, is one of the most pugilistic MAGA hatchet men in Congress, a “backroom brawler,” in the words of an Ohio Republican operative named Bob Kish. As The Columbus Dispatch observed, “In nearly 20 years in Congress, Jordan has not been the lead sponsor of a bill that became law.”He is, however, a fixture on Fox News.The White House and the Department of Justice have threatened Democrats with legal consequences if they investigate the rampant corruption endemic to the Trump administration. The very idea is preposterous. As the Supreme Court explained almost 100 years ago, “the power of inquiry — with process to enforce it — is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function.”House Republicans wrapped both arms around Pete Hegseth, protecting him from impeachment (for now), even though he has violated the Constitution, violated the laws of armed conflict and helped plan and execute a blatantly unconstitutional war against Iran.But perhaps nothing sums up the state of the Republican Party better than the report that Trump tried to stop Jensen Huang from stepping down as the chief executive of Nvidia, even as reports of multiple deeply troublesome affairs emerged, including one with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy.A call from one serial adulterer to another. Game recognizes game, I suppose.For critics of MAGA, there are two ways of looking at these events. In the flush of victory, it might be tempting to smile or to even feel a small sense of glee. A Republican Party that’s learned nothing is a party that’s likely to keep losing — and to keep losing for the same reasons.Hold on to the Trump roller coaster for two more years, minimize the damage as best you can and reap even greater electoral rewards in 2028.That certainly might happen. In fact, it’s probably going to happen. What the Trump administration lacks in venality, it makes up for in incompetence, and it’s hard to see it substantially improving its fortunes before 2028.But I have a different view: namely, that we shouldn’t delight in these failures so much as pray for the G.O.P. to come to its senses. No matter what happened on Nov. 3 (or what happens in 2028), American politics will be deeply unstable until there is an ideological and moral renaissance in the Republican Party.In the absence of that renaissance, populist kleptocrats and brutal bigots will be the only alternative for voters who may become disappointed with Democrats. Our military alliances will always be one election away from peril, and the integrity of the Department of Justice will hang on the outcome of every election.If you spend any time watching right-wing media or following right-wing accounts online, you’ll know that MAGA has settled on one message to explain the midterm wipeout: It’s the neocons’ fault. The establishment holdovers from the dreaded George W. Bush years coaxed or coerced the president into the ruinous Iran war, and without the Iran war, everything would have been just fine.So what’s the solution? Double down on MAGA and “America first” until the last molecules of the old Republican Party have been swept away.This is the reasoning that gives us Miller as the White House chief of staff.This narrative isn’t just wrong; it’s idiotic. Trump’s approval rating was trending downward well before the Iran war, and the collapse in support from Hispanic voters was almost certainly a result, in large part, of the administration’s brutal immigration crackdown, perhaps the signature issue of the MAGA movement.In reality, the time has perhaps never been riper for a conservative comeback.But first, we have to define our terms. Trump is not a conservative. It might even pay him too much of a compliment to call him a populist; that would imply that he has anything that approaches a coherent ideology. In reality, Trumpism is nothing more than the attitude and impulses of one man, whatever they may be.Certainly there are those who’ve tried to construct an ideology around Trump — JD Vance among them — and those people explicitly reject the ideology of the old G.O.P. They call it the dead consensus and have essentially sawed off every single leg of the old Republican stool.The party is now less socially conservative. The G.O.P. watered down its commitment to the pro-life cause while countless Republicans celebrated (and even emulated) the conduct of perhaps the most cruel and hedonistic man ever to occupy the Oval Office.Republicans are now weak in the face of our most dangerous enemies. I could never have imagined the day when a Republican president would side with the Russian aggressor over a nation that’s defending itself against impossible odds.Republicans are now embracing central planning and a command economy. The Trump administration scorns free trade, unilaterally imposes illegal tariffs and takes ownership stakes in dozens of companies.If Trumpism isn’t conservatism, then what is conservatism? George Will, the dean of conservative columnists, defined it well: The object of conservatism is to preserve the founding principles and institutions of the United States, including its ethos and its Constitution.I can think of few better paths back to popularity for Republicans than to adopt Will’s formulation. In fact, constitutional conservatism can be among the most effective ways to combat the least popular aspects of Trumpism.A constitutional conservative would propose legislative reform to take back the tariff authority from the president and put it back where it belongs: with Congress. This reform would help restore the balance of power between Congress and the president while also providing immediate relief to American families affected by tariffs.A constitutional conservative would combat our nation’s terrible tendency to be too ready to resort to military force by restoring and enforcing Congress’s sole authority to declare war (and impeaching a secretary of defense who violated the Constitution).A constitutional conservative would defend civil liberties from a Trumpist onslaught that has caused immense human suffering across the land. Due process has taken a beating in Trump’s immigration crackdown. Freedom of speech is under threat as he targets those he sees as his political enemies.A constitutional conservative would also recognize the central role of the United States in preserving the global order that has prevented a third world war and would help an embattled friend and partner keep the Russian bear at bay.And a constitutional conservative would defend the ethos of the founding — which recognizes the inherent dignity of all people — by remembering the fundamentally inclusive nature of the American experiment.As James Madison said in his “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” he opposed a bill establishing a tax to support Christian teaching, in part because it was “a departure from that generous policy, which, offering an asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every nation and religion, promised a luster to our country, and an accession to the number of its citizens.”There, in the words of the man who was indispensable to the creation of our very system of government, is a decisive rebuke to the nativism and bigotry of the MAGA right.Conservatives don’t have to change themselves to oppose Trump and reach the millions of Americans who’ve rejected the Republican Party. They simply have to, at long last, be themselves again.Therein lies the rub. Ten years of Trump have so divorced the Republican Party from any sense of ethics — or any coherent ideology — that for many people, the conservatism of even the recent past feels liberal. It feels woke.Appeals to human dignity? A reverence for basic human rights? Preservation of liberal democracy abroad? It all sounds so squishy. And besides, if we go down that path, won’t millions of (ugh) Democrats agree?In fact, I daresay that a majority of the readers of this column — liberal and conservative alike — agree with most (and perhaps even all) of the constitutional-conservative policy ideas I articulated above.But that’s precisely the point. There is nothing wrong with consensus when that consensus is just. In fact — and this sounds so painfully obvious that it almost hurts me to type — doing popular things that are consistent with its principles is one way that a party attains (and keeps) power. It’s one way that it can climb out of the hole that it’s dug for itself.But to act in a way that’s consistent with its principles, a party has to have principles. And that means that Republicans who want to revive the party without confronting or defying Trump are fooling themselves. There is no path back to decency — or to constitutional governance — without defeating MAGA.And as much as Democrats might recognize that Republican dysfunction is their electoral opportunity, don’t forget the past 10 years. Trump has been Trump for a very long time, and he still won the presidency twice — including after he inspired a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. Do not presume that MAGA won’t win again.The stage has been set for a Republican civil war, and every American should be rooting for the revival of a decent, conservative Republican Party.Our nation’s future may depend on it.Related ContentAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT