There was a time the Republican Party believed in policies and principles. Conservatives genuinely believed in democracy and America, and not the cynical new version that requires its citizens to hate each other. And they believed in a contest of ideas.
The concept of competing for the soul of the nation with intellectually rigorous ideas and admittedly populist rhetoric became foundational to American politics and in particular movement conservatism later on in that century.
In a speech at CPAC in 1985, President Ronald Reagan boasted of the right’s recent dominance as a result of that competition. “Now, we’re not in power now because [the left] failed to gain electoral support over the past 50 years. They did win support. And the result was chaos, weakness, and drift,” he said. “Ultimately, though…we are where we are because we’re winning the contest of ideas. In fact, in the past decade, all of a sudden, quietly, mysteriously, the Republican Party has become the party of ideas…. All of a sudden, Republicans were not defenders of the status quo but creators of the future.”
And it was this way for some time, when conservatives believed that if given the opportunity, they could win over the country on the power of their ideas.
But in the era of Donald Trump, Republicans have decided competing is no longer useful or necessary, and they’re out of good ideas.
In some ways, they’re not wrong. Polling for any number of Trump’s “ideas,” from the Iran war to tariffs to burying the Epstein files are wildly unpopular and Republicans would lose that competition if judged solely on their merits.
But rather than even bother persuading, they’ve opted for other less democratic and more cynical pursuits to win elections.
The latest is Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, which will award allies and Trump supporters “compensation” for what the Trump DOJ is calling weaponized lawfare against them.
That means, presumably, that Jan. 6 insurrectionists, some of whom committed crimes at the Capitol, including assaulting police officers, could apply for and win taxpayer dollars as a form of political reparation.
One way to view these payoffs is that they’re a blatant bribe to buy MAGA support at a time when Trump is unpopular and making unpopular decisions that are impacting his own voters.
The GOP redistricting orgy is another example of Republicans simply giving up on winning voters over. Trump and his cronies in Congress love to boast about how America is now the “hottest” country, thanks to him, but if that were the case, wouldn’t they just go out and sell that to voters before the midterms? Instead, they’ve spent millions carving out new districts all over the South. That’s hardly a reflection of a party that’s confident in their ideas and their message — rather, it’s a party admitting, we can’t win it unless we rig it.
Trump’s media fights are about more than just his fragile ego, too. They’re another tell. In trying to coerce new Trump-friendly mergers, to get detractors fired from Fox and elsewhere, to sue media outlets for critical coverage, Trump isn’t just telegraphing his deep insecurities, he’s tacitly admitting he can’t win with a free and fair press.
Trump, the consummate salesman, isn’t even bothering to sell voters on his economy or his war anymore. He’s just lying about both, and hoping loyalty to him will be enough. But just in case it isn’t, Republicans are doing every craven thing they can to tip the scales and go around the voters.
It’s sad to watch how far the party of Reagan has fallen, but today’s Republican Party has unequivocally waved the white flag in the contest of ideas, and they’re just hoping we’re all too stupid to notice they’re no longer even asking for our vote.
GOP Waves White Flag in Contest of Ideas was originally published by The Tribune Content Agency and is republished with permission.
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.