A Republican majority by default?

American elections are usually binary: this candidate or that one. Third-party candidates rarely win, and rarely have an impact. Most people pick either the Democrat or the Republican when they pull the lever. And right now, the GOP seems headed to a majority by default. They’ll win because they’re not “them”—Democrats. Biden and the progressives have overreached, something even the USA Today poll showed. They aren’t winning converts to their cause; they’re losing them.

If the GOP wants to lock down its hoped-for majority down, it needs to explain to its whole coalition of voters—the independents open to voting Republican, the moderates, the free marketeers, the social conservatives, and others—what the party’s plan is to get the economy moving, secure America’s borders and position in the world, and bring back the nation’s spirit. And the GOP must do so without driving its likely voter blocs into separate corners.

It’s a tall order that party leaders seem reluctant to embrace. They have about 100 days to come up with a plan to bring all these parts together and help voters make up their minds. In doing so, if that’s what they intend, they need to remember former House Majority Leader Dick Armey’s axiom: “When we act like us, we win. When we act like them, we lose.”