CPAC reflects the decline of the GOP from Reagan to Trump

Next month the rank and file of the Republican Right will gather at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to hear a steady dose of harsh rhetoric, conspiracy theories and valentines to authoritarians from the high priests of the ultra MAGA movement, led of course by the former president who has taken the GOP to three consecutive national election embarrassments, including his own reelection loss by 7 million votes. Based on that record, what he and his MAGA friends have to say about winning elections is not immediately obvious.

Yet the attendees will lap it up.

It wasn’t always so.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away … as of the end of the second term of President Ronald Reagan, the party had just won its third consecutive presidential election. Republicans were dominant — not just in the South and Mountain West, but also on the West Coast (California) and the East Coast (New York). Surveys indicated that the party won its strongest support among young voters and those most optimistic about their and the country’s future.

Compare that with the party’s terrible showing in these off-year elections. Despite favorable historical winds, Republicans barely won the House and lost the Senate, badly underperforming expectations. Obvious culprits are bad Republican candidates in swing states and Trump’s terrible approval ratings outside his right-wing base. Another way to analyze what happened to the GOP is to note the major changes in the party’s outlook and membership from those heady days of the 1980s.

It’s hard to talk about Republicans’ issue beliefs because they’ve focused less on policy and more on rhetoric — mostly divisive, even incendiary. The need to “own the left” has become more important than any policy.

Republicans adopted no party platform in 2020 and said little in 2022.

With their slim majority, House Republicans will be challenged to enact much of anything in the coming two years. But the change in tone in the GOP has been staggering and could explain why its footprint has gotten so much smaller over the years.

Republicans were once the optimistic party, talking enhanced opportunity amid a growing economy. Reagan’s optimism (“You ain’t seen nothing yet”) was deliberate and successful in winning support from groups not historically allied with the GOP. The three presidential elections in the 1980s saw Republicans win 51 percent (in a three-way race), 59 percent and 53 percent.

Contrast that with the “culture wars” of present day. Victories achieved are short term, not long lasting. Many of the GOP’s most cherished cultural goals are not all that popular. Unlike opportunity and a growing economy, culture wars are zero-sum, some must win and others lose. This governing approach guarantees a large voter turnout on both sides, so Trump won a record vote in 2020 — but also inspired a record turnout on the other side. Beginning with his “American carnage” inaugural address, Trump governed for four years as the chairman of a political faction, not as president of the United States seeking new supporters.

Reagan’s Republicans were clear and firm internationalists, opposing Soviet totalitarianism and advocating a clear message in favor of freedom and democracy abroad. This forward-looking foreign policy dovetailed nicely with Republicans’ focus on optimism and opportunity at home and reinforced Republican appeal to the optimistic and growing part of America. Just months after Reagan left office, his resolute opposition to the Evil Empire saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and a rebirth of freedom in Eastern Europe.

Despite new threats to freedom from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, many of today’s Republicans have equivocated in the face of these international threats. Some are old fashioned isolationists, harking back to a pre–WWII Republican ideology. To the extent that he thinks about these things, Trump has some sympathy with this view. Others are reflexively partisan, preferring to oppose Biden in all things, even in defense of freedom.

The most worrisome trend here is the rise of “Christian Nationalism.” While hard to define, it contains elements of old-fashioned isolationism, ultra-nationalism and even sympathies for some authoritarian governments such as Russia, seeing commonality with Putin’s opposition to immigrants and support for religious orthodoxy. The largest opposition to continued aid to Ukraine comes from right-wing MAGA House Republicans.

That brings us to constitutionalism and authoritarianism. At every turn, MAGA Republicans have sought to undermine the democratic elections that have defined America from its beginnings. First were continuing attempts to claim fraud when none existed. Trump famously filed over 60 lawsuits in 2020 that were dismissed. His allies then sought to halt the electoral vote tabulation by overrunning the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His disciple, Kari Lake, has refused to concede her loss in Arizona in last year’s midterms.

The Right is returning to its authoritarian roots of decades ago.

The Right in Europe was dominated by classic “strong men,” Bismarck in Germany for instance. Important elements of the Right in America were openly sympathetic to the dictators in Europe on the eve of WWII. Pearl Harbor ended that infatuation and committed America fully to the war effort. Reagan’s adoption of free market capitalism, assisted intellectually by Bill Buckley and Milton Friedman, pushed the party fully toward limited government and constitutionalism. How would Friedman be received by today’s CPAC attendees?

Trump and MAGA have pushed us backward. Right wing nationalists now talk about using government to pursue “conservative” ends. Reagan Republicans would respond that the most important conservative end is freedom. Trump himself has openly called to “terminate” the Constitution, presumably in pursuit of his personal ambitions. CPAC has hosted Hungary’s authoritarian right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban at a recent conference.

So, the party has changed before our very eyes — pessimism over optimism, isolation over engagement, and authoritarianism over a market economy.

These are all bows to the past, not the future. Republicans don’t even talk about winning national popular majorities (one win since 1988). They have no national message or any interest in winning new converts to their cause. Their focus is inward looking, not outward bound.

Is there a 2024 presidential candidate who will advocate for Reagan’s goals of freedom, international engagement and enhanced opportunity? It’s unlikely he or she will be found at this year’s CPAC.

The great conservative Richard Weaver famously noted that “Ideas have consequences.” It was a good explanation of the rise of conservatism and the GOP in the 1980s. It also explains its eclipse in the Trump years.

Frank Donatelli is a longtime political strategist, the former Republican National Committee deputy chair, and senior adviser to Ronald Reagan.