Since the emergence of Donald Trump in electoral politics, there has been considerable handwringing among the pundit class about a “changed” or “captured” Republican Party. Election season in particular brings with it think pieces and other commentary about the party’s populist turn, usually keying off of some manufactured news event — most recently, the speaking appearances of several apostate Republicans at the DNC, and a letter of support for the Harris campaign signed by approximately 200 mid- and low-level staffers of the Bush, McCain and Romney teams. While typically written by those with little love for prior versions of the Republican Party, these pieces often drip with contempt for its current incarnation. Bad faith aside, critiques of today’s Republican Party customarily follow one of two lines of argument. The first is ideological, suggesting the party has repudiated or downgraded key tenets of its traditional platform. The second is dispositional: asserting that this “isn’t your father’s Republican Party,” in that the norm-breaking antics of its candidates are inconsistent with the businesslike, Chamber of Commerce–approved party of yore. These two threads are mutually compatible, as a generally populist program aligns with a more pugilistic tone. What distinguishes them from each other likely has more to do with the observer than the target — an ideologically based explication of the party’s evolution arguably ensues from a considered examination of the party’s policies and the belief systems animating them; observations focused on the party’s tone seem mostly to find it vaguely distasteful. However, while these can occasionally be engaging thought exercises, each analysis largely misses the mark. The Republican Party of the last 75 years has been a free-market, internationalist, classically liberal party, marking a stark contrast with an increasingly statist Democratic party. While in the Trump era there have been nods to populism — manifested in the form of tariffs and a general affinity for old-line industrial policy — the party remains committed to its core principles, which include low taxes and limited regulation, individual freedom, respect for the rule of law, and a muscular (if perhaps less interventionist) approach to foreign policy. The dispositional changes may be more real, if less meaningful. It is true that the party in recent history has had a technocratic bent that was decidedly in the ascendant until not long ago (reaching its apogee with the Mitt Romney nomination). This strain has proven durable over the years; one need only consider Newt Gingrich’s famous characterization of Bob Dole during the Reagan presidency as the “tax collector for the welfare state”. An “us too, only less (or slower)” philosophy (vis-à-vis the Democrats’ government-expanding policy proposals) has held sway among several factions of the Republican Party for decades, and today that ethos still finds purchase among the segment of the party seeking to remain a civil, loyal opposition to its Democratic overlords, if only to assure one’s establishment credentials are not revoked. Yet many successful Republican leaders cut against this accommodationist grain long before Donald Trump appeared; Richard Nixon (another politically centrist, dispositionally aggressive Republican) had little reticence over giving the Democrats as good as he got. Rather, what is truly new about the Republican Party isn’t any radical change to its ideals or demeanor, but rather its composition. Neither a historically regional nor tribal party, and with a collection of beliefs and policies accessible to all, the Republicans have nevertheless functionally operated in living memory as a white, upper-middle-class suburban party. Its success in these precincts was sufficient to win at both the national and state level for a time, with increasing success in the Congress from the mid-1990s on. As the Democrats directed their energies toward urban, minority, and lower-income communities, along with other interest groups, the Republicans ceded these voters with little resistance. Subsequently, changing demography and the continued proliferation of special interests — many of which are highly motivated by single-issue politics — began to eat away at the Republicans’ electoral advantages; a Republican has won the national popular vote for president exactly once in the last 36 years. A country-club party dominated by white suburbanites is now an electoral dead-end, not to mention a moral travesty. It will remain for historians to assess whether Trump and the MAGA movement were responsible for initiating a change in approach, messaging, and policy prescriptions to reach new voters, or have simply been the beneficiaries of a shift in the electoral environment. No matter the cause, a pronounced swing away from the Democrats in 2016 by formerly loyal constituencies continues, with the white working-class (including industrial union members) leading the way. Support for the Trump 2024 candidacy and the Republican Party more generally is on the rise among African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and other minority groups, as well as with other voters who have traditionally backed the Democrats, many of whom are alienated by the party’s sharp turn toward collectivism and identity politics. At the same time, single-issue and/or identity voters — including many pro-choice suburban white women — have realigned into the Democratic column. I can appreciate why adherents of the “old school” GOP might be confused or dismayed by the party’s evolution. Change can be confusing, and as I note here, the nature of that change may not be well understood, nor honestly represented in the media. It can also be difficult to cashier that which has worked in the past. But all people of goodwill — particularly Republicans — should take heart in this evolution. What is most noteworthy is how the Republicans are attracting new voters. The Democrats’ past successes with minority and special-interest groups has been rooted in tribalism — the message being that “you’ve been oppressed or poorly served as an out-group, so support us and we’ll ensure you receive your share of the spoils.” The Republicans’ message to these and all voters is arguably what it has always been: one of freedom, opportunity, safe communities, and a stable world. The appeal is one made to voters as citizens and fellow human beings, not as faceless victim groups. After decades of failed big-government policies imbued with zero-sum tribalism, the primacy of the individual resonates with all Americans as perhaps never before. As a younger man, committed to equality and justice for all, I couldn’t grasp why the Republican Party — notwithstanding what I believed to be its superior policies — struggled to command the support of certain groups of voters. With time, I came to better understand that it had made little effort to attract them, and only when the Democrats were actually captured by their fringe did such voters feel they had somewhere to turn. As the sole major non-racialist American political party, the Republicans command not only the moral high ground, but also a significant demographic growth opportunity. There is still considerable work to do to bring the Republican Party of my hopes and dreams to fruition, but to adapt a phrase of our opponents’ presidential nominee, “we’re not going back.” Richard J. Shinder is the managing partner of Theatine Partners, a financial consultancy. The post Win or Lose This Fall, a New Republican Party appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.