Former President Donald Trump speaks outside a polling station in Palm Beach, Fla., Nov. 8.
Photo:
RICARDO ARDUENGO/REUTERS
can’t win another presidential election. But neither can the Republican Party, unless it brings his voters into the fold. What’s needed is Trumpism without Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump’s voters aren’t dolts who merely ask to be tossed some red meat—they focus on policies that affect their everyday lives.
In 2016, my wife and I crafted speeches for the only successful Republican presidential candidate since 2004. I later wrote in these pages that most middle-class voters had felt left behind in the lead-up to the election. They told pollsters they no longer believed their kids would be as well off as they had been. The American dream was fading out of reach. That should have signaled the need for radical change, but only one candidate spoke to the issue.
This was the first plank of Trumpism. If we’re immobile, Mr. Trump said, it’s because of Democratic policies on education, immigration and regulation. The voters listened and elected him in a historic upset. Their central concern remains: A November Fox News survey revealed that 59% of Americans think life will be worse for the next generation.
Mr. Trump recognized that making America mobile again would require an activist federal government. He was to the left of the libertarian wing of the GOP. So are most Americans. Nearly two-thirds of respondents told Fox’s pollsters that Washington should ensure all Americans have healthcare coverage. Mr. Trump agreed. In 2016 he said he didn’t want to repeal ObamaCare so much as replace it with something better, but what a right-wing Congress offered him was very different from what he had wanted.
Mr. Trump’s second-biggest issue was political corruption. He promised to drain the swamp and end interest-group bargains. That should have been a Republican issue, but the GOP foolishly gave it…
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