I was recently at the Aspen Institute, enjoying a delightful branzino with the former deputy undersecretary of domestic deregulation, when the conversation turned to the tragic state of the Republican Party. The mood at the table was undeniably dour. As we looked out over the majestic Colorado peaks, sipping our sparkling water, we were forced to confront a painful reality: the party we dedicated our lives to no longer exists.
The ascendance of the “Trump First” wing has been agonizing for those of us who grew up in the grand, establishment tradition of the GOP. We were the party of serious adults. We did not throw public tantrums, we did not peddle vulgar conspiracy theories, and we certainly did not scream at our televisions. Instead, we commissioned 400-page white papers from the Heritage Foundation explaining in measured, academic language why children actually thrive when you remove lead paint regulations from their elementary schools. We had decorum.
When did we lose our way? I remember a time, not so long ago, when a principled Republican could look a laid-off autoworker in the eye and calmly tell him that his pension was being dissolved to protect the sanctity of the free market. And you know what? We did it in a tailored suit. We did it with a somber, respectful tone. We didn’t call him names on Truth Social afterward. We just quietly liquidated his town’s primary employer and moved on to the next quarterly earnings call.
The modern populist wing has completely abandoned this quiet dignity. They scream endlessly about the “Deep State” and pledge absolute loyalty to one man’s personal grievances. It is a terrifying departure from our core values. Traditionally, a Republican was expected to pledge absolute loyalty to a diversified portfolio of defense contractors and multinational oil conglomerates. That was what putting “America First” actually meant: putting American private equity first, no matter how many sovereign nations we had to lightly destabilize to achieve it.
Just look at the rhetoric surrounding the federal government today. Today’s loudmouth populists want to dismantle the Department of Justice simply because they feel personally targeted by it. How incredibly selfish. A principled, traditional Republican wants to dismantle the Department of Justice because its antitrust division is attempting to block a $40 billion telecom merger. There is a profound moral difference between dismantling federal agencies out of spite and dismantling them because your college roommate sits on the board of the acquiring corporation.
We used to do our class warfare in the shadows, over a nice sea bass. Now these people are doing it at rallies. It’s tacky.
I was discussing this very issue during a panel at Davos last winter. I sat next to a prominent conservative senator—I will not name him, but let us just say his voting record on environmental protection is blissfully barren—and he confessed to me that he does not even recognize his own colleagues anymore. He told me he just wants to cut the corporate tax rate to zero and quietly retire to a lobbying firm on K Street. Now, he lamented, he is forced to pretend he cares about cultural grievances on a weekly podcast. It breaks my heart to see good, wealthy men forced to endure podcasts.
This is what the new faction has wrought. They have taken the elegant, understated art of structural inequality and turned it into a carnival barking act.
Consider the issue of immigration. The populist right treats the border like a professional wrestling promo, shouting about invasions and demanding massive walls. It is so gauche, so entirely lacking in subtlety. The principled Republican approach to immigration was always much more refined: we quietly relied on undocumented labor to keep wages systematically suppressed at our meatpacking plants and country clubs, while publicly insisting on Sunday morning talk shows that we were “looking into comprehensive reform.” It was a beautiful, symbiotic hypocrisy. Now, they just want to deport the very people who maintain my landscaping. It is economic suicide, and worse, it is going to absolutely ruin my hydrangeas.
The same tragic decline can be seen in the judiciary. For decades, the establishment wing of the party worked tirelessly in the shadows with the Federalist Society to groom judges who would quietly gut the administrative state from the bench. It was a masterpiece of stealth conservatism. Now, the new Republicans run around bragging about it on cable news, turning our meticulously planned judicial coup into a partisan spectacle. Have some respect for the shadows. You do not brag about a heist while you are still inside the vault.
And what of our foreign policy? The new breed of Republican wants to abandon our allies and pull out of international treaties out of some misguided isolationism. Whatever happened to the muscular foreign policy of the Bush and Cheney years? We did not isolate ourselves; we proactively went overseas, blew up foreign infrastructure, and then awarded the highly lucrative rebuilding contracts to Halliburton. That is how you project American strength. You do not retreat from the global stage. You expand the quarterly earnings of Lockheed Martin.
Some say the establishment is dead, but I refuse to believe it. There must still be a silent majority of Republicans out there who yearn for the days of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Men and women who understand that the highest calling of public service is ensuring that the carried interest loophole remains entirely untouched by federal regulators.
We need these traditionalists to stand up and fight back. Not with angry tweets or boisterous rallies, but with meticulously drafted legislation that deregulates the banking sector so quietly that the American public does not even notice until the next recession hits.
We need leaders who understand that the true enemy of the American people is not the media, or the Democrats, or the “woke mind virus.” The true enemy of the American people is, and always has been, the estate tax.
It is time to reclaim the soul of our party. We must push out the rabble-rousers, the sycophants, and the conspiracy theorists. We must return the Republican Party to the boardrooms, the think tanks, and the private dining rooms of Washington’s finest steakhouses where it belongs.
Only then can we get back to the serious, dignified work of making sure nothing fundamentally changes for the wealthiest one percent of this country. I urge my fellow principled conservatives: put on a fleece vest, grab a spreadsheet, and let us get back to quietly selling out the country the way the Founding Fathers intended.