One big long-term, and long-running, problem for the GOP is that it still has no idea how to harness populist energy, and no idea how to fight back when Democrats perpetually use it against them. Leadership still thinks populism is witchcraft and burns adepts at the stake.
From the Perot movement to the Tea Party and now Trump, GOP leadership views surges of populist energy as a threat to be undermined and destroyed by all means necessary, not a positive flow of energy to be understood and embraced in constructive ways.
The other side, meanwhile, relentlessly uses populist rhetoric and political strategy while doing everything in its considerable media, cultural, and political power to frighten the GOP away from it. Few strategies have been more successful at undermining an opposing party.
When the Left sees - or, more often, creates and cultivates - a populist movement, it immediately begins making detailed plans for translating that energy into practical political gains. It thinks *purely* in populist terms on almost every issue.
The Left straight-up manufactures populism every day. Its factories work around the clock to pump it out. That's how a busload of loons griping on Twitter suddenly become a "mass movement" who can "set the Internet on fire" and impose policy and cultural changes overnight.
For all sorts of reasons - ranging from common political interests with the Left, and a preference for serving as the genial, comfortable, ineffective opposition, to gaslighting and cultural disdain for populism of the Right - the GOP treats populism like radioactive waste.
That's why the GOP has a knack for losing chunks of its base at crucial moments and failing to win over enough new voters during moments of crisis. The party seems insincere and uncommitted to its nominal ideas, more interested in complaining than DOING anything.
Everything from the GOP's internal power struggles to its endless productions of Failure Theater flow from its problem with embracing populist energy and developing passionate conviction. Passion and populism go hand-in-hand. They're inextricably linked.
That's also why the GOP never seems able to consolidate its gains and build from them. Every victory occurs in isolation, without much follow-up. Unlike the Democrats, they're never planning the next offensive while they celebrate today's victory. They never generate momentum.
It's a lot to hope for, but just *maybe* we'll get some people with influence in the GOP who can learn from how Trump was able to perceive and harness populist energy. It's a lesson that even Republicans who disliked Trump or his policy agenda *should* be able to understand.
Love him or hate him, approve or disapprove, there's no question Trump won in 2016 by seeing a populist wave and running toward it with a surfboard instead of hiding under his beach blanket with the GOP establishment and waiting for it to crash.
Imagine what could be done with a party that used all of its resources, all of its power and influence, everything inside AND outside the Beltway, to work with populism and ride it to constructive policy ends. Maybe next time...? /end
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