It’s become an increasingly popular trend on the left: Democrats and corporate media types longingly wishing for a return of the “old Republican Party,” pining after the days when American politics was supposedly a more civilized affair. For conservatives, this should be as good a sign as any to forcefully guard against that version of the GOP ever making a comeback.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer offered an illustrative entry into this genre during the DNC Convention last month while commenting on the legacy of his Republican counterpart, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. “[McConnell’s] role in history, in my opinion, will go down poorly,” Schumer said. But, he continued, McConnell “can salvage some of that reputation… by trying to get the old Republican Party back.”
Schumer added that he hopes former President Donald Trump loses by a wide margin this November, another common theme among those nostalgically reflecting on the heyday of the old GOP. “If he loses by quite a bit, we may find the old Republican Party and we’ll be able to work with them,” Schumer said.
That sentiment was echoed in a Politico Magazine piece out last week. “If Republicans want to win, they need Trump to lose — big,” author Jonathan Martin wrote. “The more decisively Vice President Kamala Harris wins… the faster Republicans can begin building a post-Trump party.”
As Martin describes it, that “post-Trump” party looks a lot like the pre-Trump party.
“As they’ve demonstrated for going on a decade now, Republican leaders will repeatedly bow to the preference of their base over their own judgment when it comes to Trump,” Martin writes. In other words, the GOP is now actually listening to its voters rather than the failed Washington establishment (the audacity!).
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed the same idea back in 2022, saying she “want[s] the Republican Party to take back the party, take it back to where you were.” Biden repeatedly voiced that desire as well throughout the 2020 campaign and into his presidency.
It’s easy to see why the left wants the old regime back. Republican voters who lived through the pre-Trump era no doubt remember the endless string of betrayals and cowardice from GOP leaders – a pattern that continued well into the Trump years. It was an old guard Republican, the late Senator John McCain, who delivered perhaps the greatest victory for Democrats during Trump’s presidency by casting the deciding vote opposing the repeal of Obamacare.
For Democrats, the old Republican Party was little more than controlled opposition. Republicans won some elections, but Democrats successfully used their dominance of the media and cultural institutions to prevent them from advancing the conservative agenda that they promised their voters.
Moreover, Democrats treated the old Republican Party with the same hostility and alarmist rhetoric with which they treat the current GOP. Back in 2004, opinion pieces in The New York Times were calling George W. Bush “evil” and accusing him of “embracing conspiracy theories.” Sound familiar?
During the 2012 DNC Convention, Schumer likewise accused Republican nominee Mitt Romney of “want[ing] to take us backwards” – the very same line he and other Democrats are now using against Trump. Today, Romney is celebrated on the left as a “reasonable” Republican, the embodiment of the old Republican Party, and a “decent” man. But when he threatened Barack Obama’s control of the White House, the left slandered Romney as a callous out-of-touch millionaire. Nancy Pelosi and others on the left declared that “democracy is on the ballot,” just as they have in 2016, 2020, and now 2024.
The reality is that no matter who Republicans put forth as their nominee, no matter how neutered and compliant the party as a whole is, Democrats have proven they will always claim democracy, freedom, and everything good in the world are at risk unless the left is in power.
The difference now is that, thanks to Trump, Republicans are starting to get wise to the game. Democrats aren’t upset that the GOP is supposedly more radical than it was 10 or 20 years ago – in some ways it is less traditionally conservative. They’re upset that Trump has ushered in a new era where the center of gravity in the GOP is opposed to the elites that have truly run Washington for decades no matter which party was in power.
Ironically, it is Democrats, not Republicans, who have radicalized. Democrats were once the party of abortion being “safe, legal, and rare,” and have now become the party that celebrates extreme late-term abortion as an empowering, almost sacred act. Democrats once championed social welfare programs to help the legitimately needy; now they want to make everyone, including illegal aliens, a government dependent to create an army of loyal voters. Democrats once stood for family values, yet now they advocate for the surgical mutilation of confused children and the dissolution of the nuclear family. The list goes on.
As many former Democrats have said, they didn’t leave the party, the party left them. The American people, not just Republicans, have good reason to want the “old Democrat Party” back.
Republicans should keep this wisdom in mind: whenever your opponent complains about how difficult you are making things for them, it’s a good idea to keep doing whatever it is you are doing. As long as the left keeps wish-casting for a return of the old GOP, conservatives should be optimistic in the direction of the party.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.