GOP Senator Mitt Romney said on Sunday that MAGA Republicanism now wholly dominates the Republican Party, echoing the skepticism of those who have been waiting for some kind of “post-Trump” Republican Party to emerge.
Romney is one of Trump’s most frequent critics in the GOP and voted for the impeachment of the president-elect in 2021.
This election cycle, he opted to retire from Congress rather than face an inevitable primary challenge backed by the former-and-future president.
“MAGA is the Republican Party and Donald Trump is the Republican Party today,” Romney said, before going on to predict that the next election cycle would see that trend continue under whom he saw as the presumptive 2028 GOP nominee: JD Vance.
“Union guys, and gals … have left the Democratic Party.” He went on to blame that trend on the Democrats’ embrace of transgender rights and a focus on cultural issues while the party ignored economic issues.
In line with the cynicism of those who have been anticipating the emergence of a “post-Trump” Republican Party, GOP Senator Mitt Romney declared on Sunday that MAGA Republicanism now completely controls the Republican Party.
Romney voted in favor of the president-elect’s impeachment in 2021 and is among Trump’s most vocal opponents within the Republican Party. Instead of running against the incumbent and future president in the primary, he chose to retire from Congress this election cycle.
In a lengthy live interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, he claimed that MAGA Republicanism within the GOP had completely supplanted traditional conservatism. He appeared to abandon the notion that the Republican Party would once again adopt the neoconservative policy alignment that was either pursued by the party during the Bush administration or exemplified by Romney’s own 2014 presidential campaign.
After declaring that “MAGA is the Republican Party and Donald Trump is the Republican Party today,” Romney went on to forecast that the trend would continue in the upcoming election cycle under JD Vance, who he believed to be the presumed GOP nominee through 2028.
Romney, prompting himself to question whether the GOP should “change,” said that as a result of the Trump faction’s successful removal of working-class voters from the Democratic coalition, the party’s policies would need to change to better serve the interests of the working class, but that the Democrats were actually in “trouble.”.
“The troubled party is the Democratic Party. “I’m not sure how they get back up,” the senator remarked. Union women and men dot. departed from the Democratic Party. “”.
He continued by attributing this trend to the Democrats’ support of transgender rights and priority for cultural concerns over economic ones.
When questioned about his earlier criticism of Trump, Romney explained that he had believed the former president would lose the 2024 election and said, “I was wrong about that.”. “”.
“I believe that most people don’t agree with me. Regarding his opinion of Trump’s suitability to head the GOP, he stated, “I’m willing to live with that.”.
Kamala Harris, who has been held accountable for failing to regain the support of dependable Democratic voters in sufficient numbers to defeat Donald Trump, was the catalyst for the Democratic Party’s departure from populist rhetoric after she assumed the ticket in July.
However, after months of nearly constant reminders from voters that they were worried about Joe Biden’s capacity to be president and were disgusted with the Democratic Party for ignoring it, Harris essentially pulled the party out of a rut, as many campaign officials have also pointed out. However, the party experienced significant losses among important groups, such as Latino voters, younger voters, and Americans without college degrees, to mention a few.
While Democrats lost the Senate and the House makeup remained mostly unchanged, Donald Trump won the Electoral College by a landslide as a result of the universal defeat.
Romney is among numerous opponents of the former president who have essentially conceded that he has won the senator’s ideological support in 2024.
After Trump easily won the GOP primary this spring, losing only one state to opponent Nikki Haley, others changed their minds and made similar acknowledgements.
