“John Adams was an ornery guy, but he believed in his ideas. Parties were supposed to be about ideas,” said Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina governor and congressman who ran a short-lived primary against Trump in 2020. “If you think about the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution-they’re all about ideas. They stood for something manifest, even if that something was not always (or even usually) practiced by members of the party. However flawed the policies, however unsuccessful their execution, a tone was set in these parties from the top-down. Bush’s party aimed to project compassion and fortitude, educating poor Americans and treating AIDS-stricken Africans, while simultaneously confronting the advance of Islamic terrorism. Ronald Reagan’s party wanted to end the scourge of communism and slay the bureaucratic dragons of Big Government. Recent iterations of the GOP have been easily and expertly defined. For the first time in my life, I don’t know the answer.”Įvery fourth summer, a presidential nominating convention gives occasion to appraise a party for its ideas, its principles, its vision for governing. “I’ve tried to give you an answer and I can’t do it. I don’t give a shit-I had a stroke in January, so there’s nothing anyone can do to me to make my life suck,” he said. “Look, I’m the one guy who’s going to give you a straight answer. When I pressed, Luntz sounded as exasperated as the student whose question I was relaying.
“I think it’s about promoting-” he stopped suddenly. “You can’t say it’s about making America great again at a time of Covid and economic distress and social unrest. There is no consistent philosophy,” Luntz responded. “You know, I don’t have a history of dodging questions. If anyone had an answer, it would be Luntz.
and the provinces-connecting the concerns of everyday people to their representatives in power-has been unsurpassed. His research on policy and messaging has informed a generation of GOP lawmakers. Perhaps no person alive has spent more time polling Republican voters and counseling Republican politicians than Luntz, the 58-year-old focus group guru. Not a Never Trumper they would have as much reason to answer disingenuously as the most fervent MAGA follower. Not an elected official that would result in a rhetorical exercise devoid of introspection.
Despite spending more than a decade studying the Republican Party, embedding myself both with its generals and its foot soldiers, reporting on the right as closely as anyone, I did not have a good answer to the student’s question. Bumbling through a homily about the “culture wars,” a horribly overused cliché, I felt exposed.
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