Barry Goldwater wanted to dramatically roll back the federal government's role in the economy and in civil rights protections. George Romney supported robust social safety-net programs, feminism and advances in civil rights. In the 1960s and 1970s, the moderate-conservative rift described a set of substantial ideological differences between prominent Republican officeholders. The tendency to see the Republican Party as a body organized by a split between moderates and conservatives goes back decades. Namely, regardless of how the candidates sound, they are all part of the same project: empowering a distinctly anti-democratic Republican Party. And evaluating Republican candidates based on how they compare to Trump overlooks the bigger picture.
For one, it mistakes rhetoric for substance: on core issues, there is very little daylight between Youngkin and DeSantis. Yet this framing of the two men as representing two divergent paths forward for the GOP misses the mark. In the past few weeks, both men have been taking potshots at each other, with Trump indirectly calling DeSantis "gutless" for refusing to say he got the booster, and DeSantis suggesting Trump botched the early pandemic response. Not that the Trump mimicry has earned DeSantis the former president's favor. DeSantis, on the other hand, has positioned himself as Trump's natural heir, picking up Trump's trigger-the-libs patois and his conspiracy-driven grievance politics.
Youngkin, who won in a state that's been reliably blue in recent years, has emerged as the party's new moderate face, a Republican who kept Trump at arms' length during his campaign and avoided talking about issues like abortion and guns. Though Trump is still very much in the picture - his recent rally in Arizona had strong back-on-the-campaign-trail vibes - two Republican governors (and the states they represent) have emerged as possible answers to these GOP questions: Virginia's Glenn Youngkin and Florida's Ron DeSantis.īut as debates continue about the party's post-Trump future, it will be critical to see past conventional political labels - lest they conceal the true threats imperiling American democracy. View more opinion on CNN.Ī year after Donald Trump left the White House and with the 2022 midterms looming, much of the Republican Party has its sights on what, and who, comes next.
Editor's Note: Nicole Hemmer is an associate research scholar at Columbia University with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project and the author of "Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics." She co-hosts the history podcasts "Past Present" and "This Day in Esoteric Political History" and is co-producer of the podcast "Welcome To Your Fantasy." The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author.