Thread by @DouthatNYT

One response to this strong @mattyglesias take is that it's useful to think of the GOP's current position in terms of 18th-century "country party"/"court party" dynamics, where the key division is all about who rules rather than what is done with power.
slowboring.com/p/unhinged-mod…

This has always been part of the story of movement conservatism, which emerged in response to the growth of of technocracy and in opposition to its rule. But as the ideological sorting of the parties has become a geographic/class sort the dynamic has become more pronounced.

Since the end of the Cold War and the victories of Reaganism, especially the right has been an anti-liberal blocking coalition that's temporarily captured by various policy entrepreneurs -- compassionate cons, neocon hawks, Tea Party, etc.

Trumpism seem to portend the coalition's capture by a new group of entrepreneurs, populists or NatCons, but really it has just made the blocking-coalition aspect of conservative identity central: The whole point is now to keep power from the libs, and also to "own them."

Fundamentally I think the NatCons are correct that the way to fix conservatism is through a kind of coup: You need to elect a president who will say, "this is what we're for, this is what opposing liberalism requires," and if he's successful the coalition will go along.

But Trump didn't do that, will never do that, will make that impossible, in fact. And meanwhile he's succeeding in making being "for Trump" the coalition's litmus test of what it means to oppose liberalism. It's quite a bind.

And this is all sort-of background for my column today, on why I think the GOP might benefit (in terms of escaping permanent Trump rule) from losing the Georgia run-offs:
nytimes.com/2021/01/05/opi…