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Fights between the Left and the Democratic establishment have been front and center this election cycle, but it’d be a mistake to conclude that it’s mainly Democrats whose looks like a question mark.
Trump has kept an often discordant coalition together through force of personality, but time is running out on that dynamic. He’s term-limited and 20 points underwater with the American public. And his decisions on everything from Iran and the Epstein files to tariffs and AI have created cracks that threaten to break wide open.
JD Vance is the heir apparent, but without Trump, will he be able to keep it all together? And beyond a personal brand, is there a worldview that can unite Republicans?
Before Trump, there was the three-legged stool of free markets, traditional values, and national security hawkishness. In the Trump era, philosophies like America First, national conservatism, and common good conservatism have been bandied about under the umbrella of the “New Right.”
Amid it all, it seems like there’s no going back to the principles that guided the GOP during the second half of the 20th century. But if not those principles, then what? And how fierce will the fight be?
That’s what I’m talking about today with Stephanie Slade, a senior editor at the libertarian magazine Reason and the author of the new book Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right.
