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"The Republican Party can recover from the shellacking of 2020 and become America's natural governing party by returning to its roots as the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. It must champion the common good and the American ideals of equality and liberty that are opposed by a Democratic party that seeks to divide Americans by race and gender. The GOP must also become the party of the American Dream, the idea that whoever you are and wherever you come from, you can get ahead and know that your children will have it better than you did. It must show how the Democrats became the party of inequality and immobility through policies which benefited their elites and created a new aristocracy. What structural racism exists in America has been created by Democrats through their education, immigration and job-killing policies. Americans aren't cynical and oppose public corruption. The GOP stupidly gave the issue away to the Democrats and needs to become the party of clean government and campaign finance reform. To return to its roots, the GOP must abandon the ideologies of the last 60 years. The party's spokesmen communicated a perfect fidelity to a few, simple ideas but also an indifference to people. Trump showed how mistaken this was, and Republicans will not return to power if they abandon the ideas he brought to the party in 2016. Doing all that, the GOP will become the only party that Americans can, with honor, support"--
About the author
F. H. Buckley is a Foundation Professor at George Mason University’s Scalia School of Law and has taught at McGill University, the Sorbonne, and Sciences Po in Paris. He is a senior editor at The American Spectator and a frequent media guest.
His most recent books are Curiosity: And Its Twelve Rules for Life (Encounter Books, 2021), American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup (Encounter Books, 2020), and The Republican Workers Party: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy, and Why It Was Just What We Needed (Encounter Books, 2018).
He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Esther. His daughter, Sarah, and her husband, Nick Mark, are MDs who work for pharmaceutical companies.
Summary
After the Democratic Party divided Americans along gender and racial lines, F.H. Buckley argues that the Republican Party can become the natural governing party again by uniting Americans around a return to their roots—championing the common good, liberty, and equality.
"Frank Buckley shakes conservatives by their lapels in this sharp-edged vision for a Republican Party. Progressivism Conservatism does what’s needed—disrupt received wisdom with pragmatic, innovative ideas." —Philip K. Howard, author of The Death of Common Sense
"F. H. Buckley shows us how a seeming contradiction can lead to the healing of a fractured country." —Roger L. Simon, award-winning novelist and editor, Epoch Times
The Republican Party must return to its roots as a progressive conservative party that defends the American Dream, the idea that whoever you are, you can get ahead and know that your children will have it better than you did. It must show how the Democrats have become the party of inequality and immobility and that they created what structural racism exists through their unjust education, immigration, and job-killing policies.
Republicans must seek to drain the swamp by limiting the clout of lobbyists and interest groups. They must also be nationalists, and as American nationalism is defined by the liberal nationalism of our founders, the party must reject the illiberalism of extremists on the Left and Right. As progressives, Republicans must also recognize nationalism’s leftward gravitational force and the way in which it demands that the party serve the common good through policies that protect the less fortunate among our countrymen.
At a time when the Left asks us to scorn our country, Republicans must also be the conservative party that defends our families, the nobility of American ideals, and the founders’ republican virtues.
By championing these policies, the Republicans will retain the new voters Trump brought to the GOP as well as those who left the party because of him. And as progressive conservatives, the GOP will become America’s natural governing party.
