What’s Next for the GOP After Trump? Get Ready for 31 Flavors of MAGA. |
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Donald Trump is one of the most consequential figures in American history. What happens after he is gone?
2028 will be the first presidential election since 2012 in which Donald Trump is not the Republican nominee for president. (Despite some trolling on this topic from the MAGA right, the Constitution is pretty clear on this.)
The extent to which he has reshaped U.S. politics and society is rivaled by few of his predecessors; presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Trump will leave behind an American political system molded by him. Both political parties are bound together by him—the Republican coalition by loyalty to Trump; the Democratic one, by revulsion of him. However, those coalitions will be tested in a presidential election without the incumbent on the ballot, a moment that is growing closer every day.
Trump’s dominance over the GOP—he has gone beyond building a political movement to establishing a full-on cult of personality—was on full display at the Conservative Political Action Conference, held in suburban Dallas late last month. The president did not deign to make an appearance at the annual conservative confab, but Trump gear was the go-to wear for attendees.
There was no one sporting J.D. Vance getups or Marco Rubio costumes, let alone decked out in Ted Cruz–themed bling or Rand Paul merch. The only other American conservative political figure with whom there was any competition was Charlie Kirk, the right-wing media personality assassinated last year.
Although there was the traditional straw poll to measure whom attendees preferred in the 2028 Republican primary, it felt like an afterthought at an event that, in recent years, has been focused on appealing to Trump’s most loyal acolytes in the GOP. As attendees roamed the corridors of the suburban Dallas resort and gossiped over drinks in the faux-adobe sports bar, there was no sense of a coming contest. And from........