Trump’s candidacy is also obscuring the fact that Republicans are still the party of the future. Hillary Clinton is a Betamax candidate in the Netflix era. And there is no one coming up behind her. Down-ballot Democrats have been decimated in the Obama era. Republicans have a deep and diverse bench of 40-something year-old statewide officeholders poised to provide the next generation of leadership for the party.

Some of the impediments that have previously hurt the GOP’s appeal are fading. In 2012, Republicans’ opposition to gay marriage was a non-starter for most millennials (and many other Americans who love and respect their gay friends and relatives). That issue has almost completely faded from the public debate. As many states experiment with various schemes for legalized marijuana, that issue, too, is less of a barrier to libertarian-minded young people voting for Republican candidates.

What about the issues that Trump has championed? The history of third parties in America is that–when they are successful–their good ideas are co-opted by one or both of the major political parties. Stripped of his hateful rhetoric, counter-productive policy proposals, and the deplorable racism and anti-Semitism of some of his supporters, his focus on the issues facing working class Americans can and should have an impact, both in terms of actual policy and how we talk about the benefits of policies in the future.