Will the GOP learn from their beating?

My take. If the Dems start channeling Bill Clinton and move to the center the GOP is toast. Clinton may have been a slimeball in his personal life, but as a Democrat understood how to promote business, work across the aisle and grow our economy.

Will they do this? Not a chance. If/when we wrap things up in Iran and negotiate a deal with Putin our economy will go on a tear and the pendulum may well swing back in the GOP's favor for 2028.

To survive, the GOP must learn from Trump’s strengths and weaknesses

By Isaac Schorr, NY Post

Published Nov. 6, 2026

With the calamitous 2026 midterms now in the past and President Donald Trump entering his lame-duck era, questions about the future of the Republican Party abound.

Chief among them: Does it have one?

The age of Trump saw the GOP trade its suburban, middle-to-upper middle class voters for a more diverse, blue-collar base.

Crucially, this expanded the Electoral College map for Republicans by tearing down the “Blue Wall” Democrats had erected in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, it also weakened Republicans’ hold on the Sun Belt, creating an opening for the Democrats in the Carolinas, Georgia, Texas and, evidently, Mississippi — all of which fell on Tuesday after the party took Trumpism to its logical extreme.

What’s just as obvious is that it can’t return to its pre-Trump form.

The post-Reagan party of Bush, McCain and Romney was decent, high-minded and directionally right on the issues.

But it also lacked know-how on economic messaging, willpower on immigration enforcement and conviction across the board.

The 2016-2026 party of Trump, Trump and more Trump, on the other hand, repelled the ambitious advances of the transgender ideologues, ditched the stultifying “trickle-down” messaging and closed the border.

But it also embraced an off-putting cast of cheap imitators, overzealously pursued its deportation agenda, imposed sweeping, indiscriminate tariffs on enemies and allies alike and, after a series of foreign policy successes, overplayed its hand in Iran.

Only a party that adopts the virtues and shakes off the shortcomings of both will be viable moving forward.

The good news is that in theory, it shouldn’t be all that difficult to synthesize them.

The contours of an electorally formidable GOP are clear as day.

One, it must not water down the message at the altar of political correctness.

“Build the Wall” was perceived by the chattering class as a gauche, even racist refrain that would backfire bigtime.

To the average voter — and especially those Trump alone has proven capable of turning out — it was a breath of fresh air.

At long last someone unafraid of being looked down upon by highly educated know-nothings was promising to do something straightforward about a problem they were living and the elites denied.

Trump’s disregard for the liberal establishment’s contempt worked in his favor.

What didn’t was handing the keys over to Stephen Miller and other overtly anti-immigrant obsessives who disrupted Americans’ lives.

Straightforward language and unapologetic action, yes.

Mean-spirited overreach, no.

Two, it must stop nominating candidates on the basis of whether they either have Trump’s blessing or base their public persona off of a crude impression of him.

In 2026 — like 2022 before it — the GOP populated its slate with men and women who, were they trying to lose, would have behaved no differently.

From the corrupt (Ken Paxton), to the slimy (Vivek Ramaswamy), to the hopelessly overmatched (Darline Graham), primary voters, often at the behest of Trump, elevated some of the worst campaigners to ever run statewide.

The national environment was so bad that even many of the more talented candidates, like Maine Senator Susan Collins, NY-17’s Mike Lawler and Iowa’s Ashley Hinson ultimately fell short.

Dems throw a tantrum after one of their own endorses Mike Lawler

But they did so by far smaller margins — and building a durable party brand starts with creating a culture of nominating impressive, public-minded people who can make any race competitive.

Three, it must advocate a coherent, unifying foreign policy philosophy that mollifies its different factions.

Few debates are more toxic than the GOP’s intramural one over America’s role abroad, but Trump’s experiences should be instructive.

Assertiveness — standing up to the feckless Europeans and malicious Sino-Russo alliance, Operation Midnight Hammer, the decapitation of the Maduro regime — is popular.

Adventurism — starting a war with Iran without a plan for securing the Strait of Hormuz — is not.

The United States can be the world’s leader without also being its helicopter parent; that’s something Republicans of all stripes ought to be able to agree on.

Fourth, and finally, they must hold fast to tried-and-true economic principles while updating their elevator pitch for them.

Low taxes, free trade and a dearth of regulations remain the ingredients for economic success.

But in the decades since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the GOP’s ability to articulate itself had grown stale.

Instead of explaining how dynamism would directly contribute to the betterment of the common man, they repeated old slogans about rising tides and looked the other way as other countries benefitted from America’s open markets while protecting their own.

Republicans never needed to abandon their principles, though; they just needed to be less eggheady and more practical.

In other words: less time on lifted boats and more touching grass.

The acrimonious rivalries between traditional conservatives and MAGA diehards, hawks and doves, populists and free marketeers sometimes make it feel as though the gaps between them are unbridgeable.

But they’re not, and to rebuild a party worthy of winning again, they must be bridged.