GOLDBERG: Could the Republican Party survive a Trump defeat?

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If Donald Trump loses the election, as he and his campaign say, the fate of the Republican Party should be the least of our worries: His defeat would mean the end of the nation itself and of everything we hold dear.

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But let's assume that Trump and company are exaggerating and the country still exists. What would the GOP look like if it lost again?

This scenario seems to be getting a lot of attention lately, perhaps because Trump has insisted that if he loses, it will be due to fraud again. Such rhetoric does not inspire confidence in his prospects.

Some observers seem to think the GOP may not survive a Trump defeat. Under the headline “Trump's Potential Loss Threatens to Destroy the Modern GOP,” Axios predicted the party would be plagued by an “identity crisis,” a “brutal power struggle” and “years in the desert.” Why? Because “Never before has a party's identity been so deeply intertwined with the fortunes, fortunes and vices of one man.”

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Color me skeptical.

Oh, I agree with the power struggle part. But we've had almost a full decade of Republican identity crisis. What about the years spent in the desert? Maybe.

But the major American parties don't spend as much time in the desert because of the way our system works. If Kamala Harris turns out to be an unpopular president — which is unlikely, given that she was an unpopular vice president — voting for her would almost by definition mean voting for a Republican.

Moreover, the nature of Trump's personality cult may help the party defeat Trumpism. After all, Trumpism has little to do with Trump himself.

It seems likely that if Trump loses, he will claim that this election was also stolen. Many Republicans will undoubtedly feel the need to cooperate, which would be a disgrace to the country and, one hopes, their careers. But it could only last for so long. Assuming Trump once again has no actual evidence of fraud, and the electorate has even less patience for a repeat of 2020, the association with a lost cause and potential violence will lose its political appeal to most officials quite quickly.

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You can expect that when the smoke – figuratively or literally – clears, elected Republicans will turn on the new Harris administration. New presidents are at the center of news events, and if we know one thing about today's Republicans, it's that they go where the cameras are. The need to check the Harris administration will also be the only excuse most Republicans will accept for abandoning Stop the Steal 2.0.
Fox News would also turn its attention to the new administration in a relatively short period of time, after having previously been burned for repeating false claims of voter fraud. Meanwhile, smaller Trump-friendly media outlets would compete for the attention of die-hard supporters who won't let the dream of bringing back Trump die. The constellation of MAGA monetizers would also compete for dwindling market share with each other and Trump himself. That is, he sells watches and sneakers before the election, so he will only redouble his efforts to squeeze every last dollar from his fans after the election.

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The equivalent of this is the Tea Party movement. The groups marching under this banner had no formal leadership or organization, so after Obama's re-election in 2012, they splintered into shaky factions. I would expect the same to happen to the MAGA world, leaving legions of demagogues to deal with a dwindling supply of ratings.
There would be more consistent fights for candidates and party positions. The pro-life movement would not only accept Trump's recently adopted de facto pro-choice stance, nor would it support those who readily agreed with him, starting with his running mate, J.D. Vance. Indeed, talking about Vance as a potential heir to the throne would sound ridiculous to many after the loss, especially to the multitude of GOP politicians who would gladly run on the promise of a fresh start. And Republicans are barely able to defend the substance of Trump's trade policy right now, so I doubt they'd even try once he's out of the picture.

Which brings us back to Trumpism without Trump. With the exception of Vivek Ramaswamy – a MAGA fraudster with no voting experience – the remaining candidates who sought the party's nomination this year generally used the Reaganite language of the traditional GOP because that's their instinct. There will definitely be a fight for the future of the party. But Trump's departure from presidential politics would herald the end, not the beginning, of the Republican identity crisis.

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