It’s likely that each of these parties will be able to capture some congressional seats. This realignment will not yield a majority party in Congress, but a patchwork of minority parties. We are in for a “new normal” of coalition-building among different ideologies.
Simon Aronin
White Plains, N.Y.
To the Editor:
David Brooks beautifully presented Republican political ideologies that may take root post-Trump. However, he addressed only one of the two elephants in the room, if you pardon the pun.
Since Reagan, Republicans have used a glossy nationalism and faux religiosity to cover up two evils that represented two wings of the party: science denial (to feed the business wing) and racism (to feed the white working-class wing), both of which are now laid bare and bringing the country to its knees.
Mr. Brooks mentions racism, but not science denial. Both of these are tied to a false, twisted narrative of individualism and entrepreneurship. Until those lies are faced, everything will be a pale remix of the same old strategies.
Patty Thel
Princeton Junction, N.J.
To the Editor:
I appreciated David Brooks’s careful analysis of the future of the Republican Party by examining its younger cohort of politicians. However, it is notable that he mentioned only one woman, Nikki Haley, and she only as a proponent of current Republican ways. Without an entire gender in the mix, it is hard to believe that there will be any new direction for the G.O.P. after the Trump administration.
Sigrid Reynolds
Hudson, Ohio
To the Editor:
The Republican Party is indeed in sad shape if David Brooks believes that Senators Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse will determine the future of the party, as all four men have proven themselves to be political opportunists more concerned with positioning themselves politically than they are with coming up with a new coherent and systematic vision of Republican governance.
Senator Rubio’s policies bend and sway with the political winds, Senators Cotton and Hawley parrot the most extreme elements of the party platform and rarely achieve anything of substance, while Senator Sasse’s laments about the moral character of the party are often full of sound and fury but have little consequence in the real world.