There has been a lot of discussion recently about the future of the conservative movement. To our fellow anti-MAGA principled conservatives and legacy Republicans who are feeling lost, confused, or dispirited – and there are many – we would remind you of one immutable fact: there will be an election for President in thirty months and Donald Trump will not be the Republican nominee. And that changes everything.
No matter how often Trump trolls about third terms or cancelled elections he can’t change the calendar or the Constitution. For the first time since the Spring of 2016 there will be a contest for control of the Republican party and the direction of the conservative movement. Our Republican Legacy (ORL) is determined to help win that fight and return the GOP to its core conservative principles.
ORL was founded in the spring of 2024 as an organization to fight for traditional Republicanism. We are doing that by loudly and consistently speaking out in the media and online in support of our Party’s true principles, and by mobilizing grassroots conservatives for the battle ahead. Today we have a national leadership team, twenty-five state chairs, and thousands of grassroots supporters who have signed up to be part of our National Committee.
Our mission is very simple and direct: to help nominate and elect a legacy RepublicanPresident in 2028.
Elections matter. In fact, in American politics they are the only thing that matter, which has been so painfully obvious for over twelve interminable months. Donald Trump and his MAGA movement were able to capture the Republican party and turn it away from Reaganite principles because he won the nomination and the general election in 2016.
Some would argue that the party’s base had been edging towards populism for some time. Perhaps. But remember that the GOP nominated Mitt Romney in 2012. And does anyone doubt that the Republican party would look very different today if someone other than Donald Trump had won our nomination in 2016?
We are confident that at heart, millions of Republicans still support the Constitution and the rule of law and want a government that will unite rather than divide Americans. They still support free enterprise and free trade, fiscal responsibility and a reduction in our national debt. And they still believe in peace through strength and want America to stand by its traditional allies, Ukraine, NATO, Denmark and our other longtime friends
around the world.
We know that next year as candidates for President come forward one or more of those candidates will stand for these values and will work to redeem the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Reagan. And we will stand with them.
Yes, Donald Trump will seek to continue to dominate and define the Republican party. But his power will wane when his name is no longer on the ballot. And no other candidate can unite and animate the unique base of support he has created. The fight will be difficult. MAGA will not go quietly. Victory is not at all certain. But the point is there will be a fight. For the first time since 2016, traditional Republicans will have a fighting chance to take our party back.
So, it is time to stand up. It is time for principled conservatives to reengage. Get active in your party again. Run for party offices. Sign up to join us at ORL. And get ready to fight to win primary elections and caucuses in 2028 to nominate and elect the next great Republican President.
Some say that our party will never come back; that the damage is permanent. Nonsense. Almost nothing in this life is permanent. And in politics change comes with every election.
Traditional Republicans need to heed these words attributed to Winston Churchill, a great conservative who lost as many political battles as he won: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
This story previously ran in The Hill.
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As always, cogent words from a conservative veteran of the Washington political scene. Thanks, Chris. Looking forward to 2028 and a return to rational discourse about what’s important.
“Traditional” Republicans. Certainly would balance our one party progressive State. Speaking as a moderate Democrat whose “party” left him longing for the option to register as an independent, one party government is not healthy.
We don’t register by party in Washington State and never have, so confused by what you mean. And there’s no such thing as a “moderate,” it’s a term that gets used a lot, but has no widely agreed upon meaning.
My favorite writer on moderation is Aurelian Craiutu (Indiana). His book “Faces of Moderation” explores the concept and fleshes it out with some of its better-known practitioners, e.g., Isaiah Berlin and Raymond Aaron. Francis Fukuyama is an excellent example in the US. Polarization, of course, has made moderates rare, as you suggest.
You might want to start more locally, like getting rid of the wacko Chair of the State Republican Party, Senator Jim Walsh.
“… capture the Republican party and turn it away from Reaganite principles.”
Bummer – let go of those great principles? But not so fast – isn’t the party still right where Reagan left it on a lot of counts? Captive to fossil fuels, dependent on culture war, anti-union, friendly to anti-competitive business practices, in with fundamentalist religious organizations, dead set against health care reform. All that stuff that’s been making America a toxic society of impoverished losers?
Eisenhower was the last good Republic president I can think of.
And Dan Evans was the last good Republican governor I can think of.
He was a tough act to follow, but I find no fault with Spellman.
Chris, at the heart of the challenge to resurrect the legacy wing of the Republican Party, is the need to understand and then address the need that so many MAGA folks believed was missing from it. That is the hardest task to address without adopting Trump’s anti-democratic norms, which ignore laws and established traditions. I disagree with many of the legacy R’s policies, but at least they were anchored in the belief in a Republic based on a democratic process that promoted diversity in thought, religion and ethnicity. Good luck.
Nick teased you here, but didn’t spell out what “MAGA folks believed was missing from” legacy Republicanism. I think it was two things: 1) the old guard GOP’s country club politics — its commitment to the rich through tax cuts on wealth and spending cuts on nearly everyone but defense contractors; and 2) the old guard GOP’s militarism. MAGA folks have rightly rejected both of these things. Sadly, I think establishment Democrats embrace both things today almost as much as legacy Republicans did. Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have yet to advance an agenda that would truly help the working poor, and they continue to support the rationale (“Muslims suck”) behind recent forever wars like this one against Iran.
I think it’s non-fact based that that MAGA are against foreign adventures on a principled basis.
MAGA are against misbegotten and asinine wars WHEN WE LOSE.
Had this Iran idiocy was showing itself to be obviously successful, MAGA people (including the bigot Carlson) would be cheering for Trump.