Posts tagged as “Donald Trump”

President Trump is the Greatest Obstacle to Peace in Ukraine

President Trump is the Greatest Obstacle to Peace in Ukraine

By John R Guardiano on August 17, 2025

Trump’s policy of appeasement enables Putin to shun American peace overtures and to continue Russia’s war on Ukraine.

In his second term as president, now nearly seven months old, Donald Trump has adopted a policy of appeasement toward Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin.

This is an undeniable statement of fact. And the Alaska summit clapping, red carpet welcome, and presidential limo ride are the least of it. That’s theater.

More substantively, Trump has had every reason to turn the economic screws on Putin and escalate arms shipments to Ukraine. Yet each and every time he has flinched and given Putin a pass. Why?

Trump fears that if he speaks honestly and candidly about Putin, intensifies economic sanctions against Russia, and commits to a Ukrainian military victory, that that will anger Putin and force the Russian dictator and war criminal to spurn his peace overtures.

For this reason, Trump has worked, instead, to appease and placate Putin, but with no demonstrable results or movement toward peace.

This is unsurprising. Appeasing genocidal dictators who lust for territorial conquest never works. Appeasement doesn’t satiate the dictator’s appetite for territory and power; it whets it. Winston Churchill understood this; Donald Trump does not.

The Reagan Precedent. Or, to take a more recent example, when Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981, he did not appease the series of Russian dictators who then led the Soviet Union. He publicly opposed them and waged a cold war against them.

Reagan also waged hot wars against Russian proxy forces in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, and elsewhere.

Yet despite his tough talk and tough action—or rather, because of his tough talk and tough action—Reagan ultimately secured historic arms control agreements with the Soviets, while bringing about the demise of the Soviet Union. And Reagan achieved this without any direct confrontation or war with the Russians.

Reagan called it “peace through strength” and it worked. Trump insists that he, too, believes in “peace through strength”; but his policy toward Putin and Russia tells an entirely different story. It tells a story of weakness and appeasement.

Unfortunately, because Trump has adopted a policy of appeasement, Putin has no real reason or incentive to negotiate in good faith. After all, he faces no serious military or economic consequences for stringing Trump along.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio insists that this is not true. Every single sanction that was in place when Trump was sworn into office Jan 20, 2025, remains in place, Rubio says.

Maybe, but Trump administration enforcement of those sanctions has been lacking, and the Russians have increasingly found ways to avoid and evade these sanctions. Plus, there is a lot more than can and should be done to punish Russia so as to force Putin to negotiate in good faith.

As the Kyiv Post reports:

A new and damning report from the minority staff of the U.S. Senate Committees on Banking and Foreign Relations alleges that the Trump administration has “abruptly halted” the economic pressure campaign against Russia, a move that is said to be undermining Ukraine’s leverage and emboldening the Kremlin.

Titled ‘Dropping the Baton’, the report, reviewed by Kyiv Post on Sunday, claims that after three years of consistent and rising pressure from the United States and its G7 partners, the new administration’s “pattern of inaction over the past six months is clear.

The document, prepared for Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), presents four main findings, building a case that the US is failing to use sanctions and export controls to help achieve a “just peace in Ukraine.”

The report states that the administration has allowed pressure to “dissipate” despite a growing number of Russian circumvention efforts and has stood by as evaders, particularly in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), have profited from their support for the Kremlin’s war machine.

The bottom line: despite his insistence that he earnestly wants to end the war and stop the killing, the truth is that President Trump is the greatest obstacle to peace in Ukraine. The president may mean well, but his policy of appeasement does nothing to foster peace.

To the contrary: appeasing Putin is giving the Russian dictator and war criminal newfound hope that, if he can just hang on long enough, he might yet prevail and win in Ukraine.

President Trump needs to disabuse Putin of this notion and dash any hope of a Russian victory. This means adopting a true policy of peace through strength.

Specific Measures. It means punishing economic sanctions, secondary economic sanctions, rigorous enforcement mechanisms, intensified military arms shipments to Ukraine, and an unwavering commitment to ensure that Ukraine wins and Russia loses.

Then and only then will Putin recognize that he has no choice but to end his war, stop the killing, and negotiate a real and enduring peace.

Then and only then will Trump become the peacemaker and not, as he is now, the greatest obstacle to peace.

Feature photo credit: Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, courtesy of the National Post. Photo by John Mahoney, Post Media, Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images.

Louisiana’s Ten Commandments Law and the Politics of Winning and Losing

Louisiana’s Ten Commandments Law and the Politics of Winning and Losing

By John R Guardiano on June 23, 2024

The law shows that, in Donald Trump’s Republican Party, fighting too often has become an end in itself and not a means to an end, which is winning.

Eric Erickson is a serious and thoughtful conservative. So I was surprised to hear him voice strong criticism of a new Louisiana law mandating display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom in the state.

However, Erickson’s criticism is not with the sum and substance of the law. He says he supports displaying the Ten Commandments in the classroom, as well as making the Ten Commandments part of the required course of study.

Instead, Erickson’s beef is with what he views as the state’s losing way of going about this, or losing way of fighting this political battle.

Judicial Scrutiny. For starters, he says, the law almost certainly will be struck down by the Supreme Court. A 1980 Supreme Court case (Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39) has “an almost identical fact pattern,” Erickson notes.

If Louisiana Republicans really wanted to win this fight, they would have avoided launching a doomed frontal assault on Stone v. Graham. Instead, they would have passed a law specifically designed to avoid judicial scrutiny, which would have accomplished the same thing, Erickson argues.

In other words, Louisiana Republicans would have fought to win and not fought for fighting’s sake or fought to lose. How might they have achieved this?

Winning Legislation. Erickson says Louisiana legislators could have passed two simple and Constitutionally unassailable laws that would have allowed schools and teachers to display and teach the Ten Commandments.

First, pass a law that says no school district or school board can punish a teacher for posting the Ten Commandments in the classroom.

Second, pass a resolution that says local churches and synagogues are welcome and encouraged to provide copies of the Ten Commandments to any teacher who wants them.

These two simple laws or resolutions would have accomplished the same thing as a mandatory Ten Commandments display, but without running afoul of the First Amendment’s establishment clause, Erickson argues.

The display of gay pride flags in many public schools, he explains, provides a useful example of how conservatives ought to wage their fight to display and teach the Ten Commandments in the classroom.

The state, contrary to the silly claims of some, is not forcing teachers to put up Pride flags in classrooms. [Some teachers] are doing it on their own volition.

Christian teachers should respond by putting up the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, or useful proverbs as posters. The Kennedy case (Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507 (2022)) would clearly allow the teachers to do it on their own.

Louisiana Policy Failure. Moreover, Erickson asserts, the weakness of Louisiana’s mandatory Ten Commandments display is underscored by the fact that the Republican Governor, Jeff Landry, vetoed tort reform, and the Republican state legislature provided scant and inadequate funding for Education Savings Accounts.

Yet tort reform and school choice via education savings accounts are two highly prized conservative policy reforms.

Erickson makes an important point that needs to be heard, especially today, in Donald Trump’s Republican Party.

Trump’s Failure. Trump is often praised for being “a fighter,” and for his willingness “to fight.” But what Trump’s acolytes and sycophants don’t seem to understand is that fighting is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end, which is winning.

Unfortunately, Trump is a poor and inept fighter. He doesn’t fight well or smartly, or with an overarching strategic and tactical purpose.

Sure, Trump throws a lot of punches, but most of his punches don’t score or connect. And many of his punches boomerang and end up hurting himself and the Republican Party.

That’s why Trump lost the 2020 election, and that’s why Republicans seriously under-performed in the 2022 midterm elections.

It’s not that Trump and the Republicans had a bad record and an unpopular agenda in 2020 and 2022. To the contrary: they had a good record and a positive agenda: peace and prosperity, tax cuts, historically low unemployment, low inflation, a booming stock market, et al.

The problem was (and still remains): Trump does not know how to fight. He doesn’t know how to pick his fights and frame issues to his and the Republican Party’s political advantage.

Republican Policy Failure. Unfortunately, Trump’s propensity to lose politically and in the policy arena has spread throughout the Republican Party.

Louisiana’s failure to pass tort reform, fund school choice, and enact a winning Ten Commandments law are all prime examples of this propensity to fight for fighting’s sake without a commitment to win and prevail.

“We keep losing,” writes Erickson, “because our supposedly strategic thinkers make more from defeat because, after all, they fight!

“They’d rather own the libs than own the future. Losing is a feature, not a bug, for them. So, too, is blaming anyone who’d like to win instead of engaging in failure theater.”

Erickson is right. Politically speaking, there are not ten commandments; there is only one commandment, and that is to win. Unless and until conservative Republicans understand this, displaying and teaching the Ten Commandments in the public schools will forever be a distant dream.

Feature photo credit: A screen shot of conservative pundit Eric Erickson via Twitter and the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, Donald Trump, courtesy of Fox Business.

The Russia Nuclear Weapons Excuse for American Appeasement

The Russia Nuclear Weapons Excuse for American Appeasement

By John R Guardiano on June 24, 2023

It’s gained currency, especially on the Trumpian Right, as a result of the Wagner Group insurrection, but it remains a dangerous and specious idea.

The Wagner Group’s armed rebellion against the Russian military has inspired hope that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin might soon be ousted from power and, with that, Russian forces withdrawn from all of Ukraine.

Yet, this good news has been met with skepticism by some, especially right-wing apologists for Donald Trump, who warn that Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons; and that political instability in Russia might result in “loose nukes,” which could threaten the world with nuclear armageddon.

The Trumpians. For this reason, say the Trumpians, the United States should be wary of “regime change” in Russia. The implication is that we are better off with the devil we know (Putin) than the devils we don’t know (Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin and perhaps other warlords who might rule over different parts of a fractured and divided Russia).

As Rebekah Koffler, a former U.S. defense intelligence officer, told Fox News this morning:

There’s a real threat of an armed insurrection in Russia, which possesses six thousand nuclear weapons. A lot of them are pointing at the U.S. homeland. And any kind of instability [in Russia] is not good for anyone.

The Chimera of ‘Stability’. But should American foreign policy really be wedded to Russian status quo “stability” because of a fear that Russian nukes might end up lost, unaccounted for, and in the hands of a deranged warlord?

Of course, it goes without saying that the United States has a vital national interest in ensuring that Russian nuclear weapons are retained and controlled by a legitimate, responsible, and competent state actor. But there is real reason to doubt that the Putin government is any of those things.

The Russian dictator has regularly brandished his country’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, while intimating that he is prepared to use nukes in Ukraine. That is hardly responsible behavior.

As for competence, does the Russian invasion of Ukraine strike anyone as a case study in military competence? And Putin’s legitimacy rests on a mountain of fear, graft, and oppression that has few rivals in the 21st Century.

Appeasing Putin. In short, there is no reason for the United States to embrace or prop up Putin. He does not warrant American support or appeasement. An alternative Russian ruler or rulers could be worse; but if so, it would be a mater of degree not kind.

Moreover, a new, successor regime (or regimes) might be much better for the Russian people and the West.

At the very least, Putin’s ouster from power would weaken Russia and provide the impetus for a possible Russian withdrawal from all of Ukraine. The 1917 Russian Revolution, remember, precipitated the Russian withdrawal from World War I.

A stubborn and ill-advised commitment to status quo “stability,” however, precludes any possibility of positive change within Russia.

Farfetched Scenarios. Finally, suppose the farfetched scenario came true. A dangerous warlord took over part of Russia and assumed control of a “lost” nuke or nukes. Does this mean he can, willy-nilly, detonate his nukes and ignite “World War III”?

No, not at all. Nuclear weapons, after all, are not like a handgun or a rifle. One person cannot simply pick them up, lock-and-load, and fire away. That’s not at all how they work.

An entire series of military and technical experts within the chain of command would have to assent to their use and set in motion the process for their employment and detonation. That’s much easier said than done.

That is why, throughout the Cold War, nuclear weapons never paralyzed American presidents, Republicans and Democrats, into inaction and appeasement vis-à-vis Russia.

American policymakers understood that although nuclear weapons were a quite serious matter, they cannot and do not give our enemies a trump card or veto power over the United States.

Nuclear Weapons. Yet, this doesn’t stop Trump and his acolytes from acting as if nuclear weapons were just discovered yesterday and must, therefore, necessarily upend international relations as they have been been practiced since at least the mid 20th Century.

“First come the tanks and then come the nukes,” Trump declared five months ago. “I think we’re at the most dangerous time maybe in, in many, many years—maybe ever—because of the power of nuclear,” he added.

Never mind the fact that nuclear weapons have been around for some 75 years and yet somehow, we’ve managed to avoid a nuclear war while still winning the Cold War and liberating Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

And never mind the fact that modern-day missile defense technologies render the use of nuclear weapons more suspect and problematic than ever before. As Trump sees it, “the power of nuclear” renders all previous history irrelevant to modern-day challenges.

Trump, of course, is not serious. He is simply fear-mongering in a transparent attempt to win votes and political praise.

The truth is: nuclear weapons do not give U.S. policymakers any reason to appease Putin. And Russia would be better off, and the American national interest would be served, were the Russian dictator to be ousted from power.

True, Putin’s successor might be worse, but Russia would be weakened and its ability to control Crimea and parts of eastern and southern Ukraine likely would be dealt a deathblow.

The bottom line: the United States cannot control who rules Russia. However, by aiding Ukraine, we can help to ensure that whoever rules Russia has limited room for destructive maneuver. American action, not American appeasement, is what history demands.

Feature photo credit: Donald Trump, courtesy of Evan Vucci/AP in The New Yorker.

Trump and House Republicans are to Blame for the Omnibus Spending Spree

Trump and House Republicans are to Blame for the Omnibus Spending Spree

By John R Guardiano on December 23, 2022

The much-derided omnibus spending bill was inevitable when Republicans decided to make Trump the centerpiece of their 2022 Congressional election campaigns.

House Republicans, and even some dissident Senate Republicans like Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida), are whining about the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill is about to become law; but really, they have no one to blame but themselves.

These “MAGA Republicans” tied the party’s political fate to one, Donald J. Trump, and, as a result, lost big-time in the 2022 midterm elections. The GOP lost one Senate seat and now is in the Senate minority, while badly underperforming in House elections nationwide.

GOP Disarray. Moreover, House Republicans cannot even agree on whom their leader should be. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) should be the next Speaker of the House; but that is far from assured, since a renegade group of kamikaze Republicans seems intent on blowing up the House GOP majority.

So you can understand why most Senate Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), are eager to pass legislation now—before House Republicans set up their circular firing squad and begin taking aim at each other.

“No question, there are many Senate Republicans who worry that the new House Republican majority will not be able to pass spending bills with 218 Republican votes come January or February,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) told radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Consequently, he explained,

Speaker McCarthy would have to go to the Democrats and ask for their votes to pass a bill. And if that were to happen, then the Democrats, obviously would demand a ransom in the form of tens of billions of dollars in new spending that they didn’t get in this bill.

So there’s no question that many Senate Republicans think that, right now, the best deal possible—not just for December, but also in the new year— would be a bill that holds the Democrats to the defense budget they just voted for last week. while also preventing the domestic spending budget from going up beyond what Joe Biden requested.

The Omnibus. Sure, the omnibus spending bill includes many odious things (such as limitations on border enforcement) that delight far-left, “progressive” Democrats. But that was the inevitable result of the GOP’s weakened position stemming from the party’s awful performance in the 2022 mid-terms. And for that, you can thank Donald Trump, who remains one of the most despised and unpopular political figures in America today.

Maybe Republicans will think twice next time before they decide to make Trump and his idiotic desire to re-litigate his 2020 election defeat the centerpiece of their Congressional campaigns. That was a bad political move for which the GOP paid a steep political and legislative price.

Policy Wins. The good news is that thanks to the political and legislative savvy of Sen. McConnell, Senate Republicans were able to extract some significant policy wins in the omnibus spending bill.

As Sen. Cotton alluded to, for instance, the defense budget has been significantly increased after being savaged by the Biden inflation and a decades-long modernization holiday.

Aid to Ukraine also has been secured. This is especially important because House Republicans have intimated that they might stop or curtail aid to Ukraine in the name of fiscal restraint. Now, though, thanks to the omnibus spending bill, House Republicans will have limited room for destructive legislative maneuver.

The bottom line: House Republicans, and dissident Senate Republicans like Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida), are getting what they deserve. They’re getting their just desserts. They’re getting their comeuppance.

These Republicans made Trump and his selfish political obsessions the focal point of the 2022 election. The American people said, “no thanks”; the GOP lost; and the party now is at a decided political and legislative disadvantage.

The omnibus spending bill is far from perfect, but it reflects the hard cold reality of what the Republican Party can achieve now, legislatively, given its foolish and costly embrace of Donald Trump.

Feature photo credit: Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) (L) secured the best deal possible in the wake of GOP election losses caused by the Republicans’ enthusiastic embrace of Donald Trump (R). Courtesy of People magazine (Oliver Contreras/Bloomberg via Getty Images).

To Win, the GOP Need to be Conservative, Not Populist

To Win, the GOP Need to be Conservative, Not Populist

By John R Guardiano on November 13, 2022

Republicans will win in 2024 if they eschew Trumpian populism and embrace Bush-Cheney conservatism.

Although former President Trump is obviously responsible for the Republican Party’s disastrous and historically unprecedented subpar performance in the 2022 mid-term elections, his diehard defenders and apologists are warning the GOP not to abandon the “populist agenda” that supposedly made Trump, in their view, a successful politician.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham, for instance, credits Trump with energizing and “reinventing the GOP,” while setting it upon the path toward becoming a “multiracial working class party.”

In Ingraham’s view, Trump rejected the “pro-war” and “pro-CCP” (Communist Chinese Party) establishment GOP epitomized by former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and 2008 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Ingraham warns Republicans against reverting back to the establishment’s supposed love for amnesty, open borders, endless wars, and unfair trade with China.

She essentially acknowledges that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee and warns him against being cooped by the dreaded GOP “establishment.”

Of course, this is a badly distorted and self-serving analysis that ignores many inconvenient truths.

For starters, Trump’s supposed political success is far less impressive than Ingraham suggests. The man won one fluke election (in 2016) against a very weak Democratic opponent (Hillary Clinton), and he did it by narrowly winning three states—Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—with a large contingent of white working class voters.

Since then, thanks to Trump, the Republicans have been decimated in two of these states (Michigan and Pennsylvania), while barely hanging on in the third (Wisconsin).

Biden won all three states, of course, in 2020; and all three states have Democratic governors who just won election or reelection.

Pennsylvania and Michigan have two Democratic senators; Wisconsin has one. The sole Republican Senator, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, barely won reelection against an extraordinarily weak Democratic opponent.

Dems, meanwhile, flipped both houses of the Michigan state legislature for the first time in nearly four decades, while apparently winning control of the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives.

The bottom line: the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin is in far worse shape, thanks to Trump, than it was seven years ago before he came on the political scene.

Michigan’s reelected Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, would be a very formidable Democratic presidential candidate in 2024. Ditto Pennsylvania’s newly elected governor, Josh Shapiro.

As a result, it is difficult to see how any Republican can win these states in 2024. And without winning at least one of these three states, it is difficult to see how any Republican can win the White House in 2024. The Electoral College math simply does not compute.

George W. Bush. In fact, to win in 2024, the Republicans’ best bet might be to essentially update or tweak what George W. Bush did in the Electoral College when he was elected and reelected president in 2000 and 2004, respectively.

That is, sweep the South and the West, while winning Iowa and New Hampshire, but losing Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia. That would give the Republican presidential candidate 271 Electoral College votes: one more than necessary to win the presidency (see the Electoral College map below).

That, of course, is precisely how Bush won the 2000 presidential election (see the Electoral College map above).

The Likely 2024 Electoral College map, courtesy of 270ToWin.com.

Yet, ironically, Ingraham derides Bush as the exemplar of all that is wrong with the Republican Party: because he was committed, supposedly, to “endless wars,” open borders, and trade with China.

Bush’s Policies. But while the Iraq War may have been a mistake, it was essentially over and won by the time Bush left office in 2008, thanks to “the surge” of U.S. troops and adoption of a winning military strategy.

The war in Afghanistan was still in a low boil, but if he had a third term, Bush almost certainly would have replicated “the surge” in Afghanistan to successfully end the war, or at least make it manageable without an abject American defeat and withdrawal.

It is true that Bush tried to solve the immigration crisis, but it is not true that he was committed to amnesty and open borders.

Unlike Trump, Bush did not support building a wall along the southern border, but remember: Trump himself never really built the wall either. He talked a good game, but failed to deliver. Just ask Ann Coulter.

Bush did try to engage China; but so, too, had every American president, Republican and Democrat, since Richard Nixon. This was a good-faith, decades-long effort that had to change as China’s adversarial posture vis-à-vis the United States became increasingly clear and transparent.

Thus a President Romney or a President McCain would have confronted China, but in a far more effective way than Trump: by better leveraging the strength of our allies in the Pacific—and without the collateral economic damage that resulted from ill-advised tariffs or taxes on American manufacturers and consumers.

Trump’s Policies. Moreover, Trump’s political success, such as it was, resulted from traditional conservative Republican policies, not newfound populist ideas.

Corporate tax reform, for instance, ushered in the lowest unemployment rate in nearly 50 years and the lowest black unemployment rate in recorded history. And energy deregulation resulted in American energy independence for the first time in our nation’s history.

Trump also stopped the flow of illegal immigrants pouring across the U.S.-Mexican border, albeit without the wall or in spite of the wall.

Trump accomplished this belatedly in his administration by finally adopting regulatory reforms, such as a “remain in Mexico” policy for would-be asylum seekers and DACA restrictions, that effectively secured the border.

On the international stage, Trump definitely was not an isolationist or a non-interventionist. He ordered ISIS destroyed and Iranian General Qasem Soleimani killed, and he achieved both of these objectives quickly through the use of American military power.

Bush v. Trump. Yet, despite these policy successes, Trump failed to win a majority of the popular vote in both 2020 and 2016. As David Frum points out:

He lost the popular vote in 2016. He lost the House in 2018. He lost the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2020. He lost the Senate in 2021.

Since 2000, there have been six presidential elections, and thus 12 presidential nominations by the two major parties. In his share of votes cast, Trump finished tenth and 11th out of the 12: behind Mitt Romney, behind John Kerry, behind Al Gore.

In fact, the only Republican presidential candidate to win a majority of the popular vote in the past 32 years (eight presidential elections) was George W. Bush, in 2004.

So let’s not pretend that Trump achieved unparalleled political success when he clearly did not. And let’s not pretend that he outperformed his Republican predecessors at the ballot box when the facts show otherwise.

In truth, Trump achieved some political and policy success by forthrightly addressing, or trying to address, new problems that had arisen in the new millennium.

For the most part, he adopted traditional conservative policies that proved successful. When, on occasion, Trump deviated from these conservative policies to embrace Ingraham’s preferred populist positions, he was far less successful.

Trade is a good example. As Douglas A. Irwin explains, Trump’s ill-advised tariffs increased the trade deficit; eliminated tens of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs; reduced household incomes; and were a drag on economic growth.

“Numerous studies, add Jeb Hensarling, the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee (2013-19), “have shown that almost all the costs of tariffs initiated under the Trump administration were paid by American consumers and businesses.”

Conservatism, Not Populism. The truth is Trump’s political success has little to do with populism and everything to do with conservatism.

Populism, in fact, got Trump in trouble. Jan. 6 populism, for instance, was an unmitigated disaster. It haunted Republican candidates nationwide in the 2022 mid-terms, while destroying whatever chance Trump had to win a second term in 2024.

Ingraham, then, has it precisely backwards. The danger for Gov. DeSantis and the Republican Party is that they try to ape Trump’s populism while giving short shrift to the conservative policies that actually proved successful, substantively and politically, for Trump.

Conclusion. In other words, contra Ingraham, we need a more conservative and less populist Republican Party.

We need a Republican Party that applies tried-and-true conservative principles to modern-day problems. We need a Republican Party that believes in markets, American military power, and parental sovereignty and choice.

Therein lies public policy success. Therein lies political victory—in 2024 and beyond. Populism is a mirage that will only lead Republicans astray down the primrose path to defeat and permanent minority status.

Feature photo credit: the 2000 presidential election Electoral College map, courtesy of 270ToWin.com.