This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has proven what I have been afraid of for a long time: The party is throwing away years of storied history and is replacing it with obedience to Donald Trump. I didn’t have to attend in person. Watching it live, I could see the future of my beloved party being destroyed.
I am a proud Republican, and I believe in all of the core principles of our beloved party: small federal government, the rule of law, individual freedom, lower spending and fewer taxes. These principles have built America into the greatest country in the history of the world, and even today, they’re necessary to keep the country above the rest, as shepherd of the world.
But Trump’s policies and ideas are killing the party. A border wall, paid for by the federal government? That goes against everything about small federal government. Calling out Robert Mueller and the investigations? While I do believe that these investigations are politically motivated, the rule of law should be held above everything – politics and pride included. Trump also called out the media, as well as socialists on the left and anyone who isn’t a conservative Christian. Instead of appealing to the widest possible group of people, his appeal becomes smaller and smaller, to fewer people with more fanaticism.
It’s this level of belief in Trump that has forced competition out. No one has stood to oppose Trump within the party for fear of losing votes. Ted Cruz, whom I voted for in the 2016 primaries, was a vocal opponent of Trump’s egoism and failings. Now, after speaking at CPAC, he’s behind the president. Mitt Romney, who Fox News once called the only man who could defeat Trump, took Senator Hatch’s job in Utah and has left the national stage. With every other politician afraid to lose votes from Trump’s massive base, nobody will oppose him.
Being from Florida, I have seen more and more blue voters come into the state in the past few years. If what Fox News says is true, I can only assume that the same is happening in Texas. If either of these states go blue, then it’s curtains on another Republican president through the electoral college. While some at Hofstra will be cheering at the thought of that, it was Republicans like Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan who helped end major crises and build America up for the better.
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in particular spoke about the rise of socialism from the left and how it would ruin America. Socialism has no place in America, and I’m confident that the American people will reject it. I think that it will be my beloved party’s own failure that will ruin America. We should not keep reaching for the ever-shrinking pool of strident supporters. If we on the right can’t expand to include more people of all shades, and if we cannot get out of the shadow of the president and work to turn blue voters red, we’re finished.
The writer requested anonymity out of concern for their safety.
