America needs a conservative party

So far, 2022 election postmortems have focused on the degree to which Donald Trump’s mimics—with their prickly demeanors, conspiratorial paranoia, and adherence to stolen election narratives—cost the GOP winnable races. That’s justifiable, given the underperformance of those candidates compared with more conventional Republicans up and down the ballot. But the GOP’s Trumpy candidates were not evaluated on personality alone. They took with them into their races both the baggage Donald Trump brings to the table and his populist platform.

In 2022, the rise of populist Republicanism muted the distinctions between the two parties and foreclosed any prospect of voting for a party that will preserve as much or more than it will transform. Indeed, the bipartisan consensus around the notion that America could use a radical overhaul has led the country’s two major political parties to mirror each other in ways that are utterly redundant.