CHRISTOPHER RUFO: The Trump coalition is forming. Who should be in it?
The GOP is establishing a new coalition, with various factions jockeying for their place within the administration. The president and his team need to be judicious in whom they elevate within this emerging coalition—and whom they exclude. Trump's coalition in his second presidency is radically different than that of his first, and the difference holds both promise and peril.
In my judgment, all potential members of the coalition should be evaluated based on two key criteria, or filters. The first is whether they have skin in the game. The second is whether they have a bias toward action which will help accomplish the president's goals in the real world.
Two new constituencies easily meet this test: the so-called Tech Right and the dissident Democrats. The leaders of the Tech Right, such as Elon Musk, David Sacks, and Marc Andreessen, have taken on personal and financial risk in supporting Trump. Had they failed, a President Kamala Harris would have exacted retribution. They also risked their reputations in famously progressive Silicon Valley by openly endorsing Trump, who, only a few years before, was persona non grata in their communities.
Likewise, all these Tech Right figures are action-oriented and will help the president accomplish his goals. Musk has already terminated hundreds of millions of dollars in needless federal contracts through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Tech entrepreneur Sacks has advanced the crypto and AI industries. And other lesser-known figures in the Tech Right are helping to staff the administration in key posts, where they will advance the president's agenda. They bring a technical and management expertise lacking in Trump's first presidency; as such, their presence will be a net positive, even if they demand certain concessions from the president on, say, H-1B visas and high-skilled immigration.
Dissident Democrats are another valuable constituency. Figures such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard took immense personal risk in endorsing Trump, burning their bridges not only with the Democratic Party but also with most of their elite social circles. Whatever disagreements one might have with them on policy, it's clear that they are joining the administration from a sense of mission and purpose, not simply to collect another accolade or credential. They also offer value in providing an off-ramp for Democratic voters who feel abandoned by the party. These high-profile defectors model the kind of behavior Trump will have to show to bring over moderate Democrats and others who had previously shied away from the GOP.
Two factions currently trying to establish positions in the coalition should be rejected: the "principled conservatives" and the "reasonable centrists." The so-called principled conservatives, the latest mutation of the NeverTrumpers, have tried to stake out a position as arbiters of morality. Writers at the Bulwark browbeat the president from what they consider a center-right perspective, and New York Times columnist David French, who changed all his principles without explanation, uses the simulacrum of those principles to support critical race theory and other left-wing ideologies, supposedly from a conservative point of view.
These center-right figures should be rejected. They have no skin in the game, and they show a bias toward the kind of interminable, abstract debate that would hamper the Trump administration's ability to make progress. Elections are designed to settle broad questions facing the American people; presidential administrations then implement these conclusions. But if the principled conservatives had their way, we would spend the next four years mired in lectures about how they agree with some of the administration's policy goals but disagree with how they are being achieved.
Such arguments are disingenuous; they are designed not to provide moral clarification but to get the administration stuck in a morass. They resemble the old Soviet disruption techniques of interminable meetings, technical objections, and parliamentary ruses to reduce the effectiveness of an infiltrated organization. The GOP should reject the principled conservatives' dubious status as moral arbiters and exclude them from any coalition moving forward.
The "reasonable centrists" should also be sidelined. These are typically center-left Democrats who voted for Clinton, Biden, and Harris but have minor heterodox positions on DEI or transgender ideology that, in their view, entitle them to a position of authority over the GOP.
We can think of someone like TV talk show host Bill Maher in this way. Even when such center-left Democrats claim to agree with the administration, they always seem to oppose action. The "reasonable centrists" are, in fact, not reasonable at all. They refuse to join the coalition, but, instead, place themselves above it, dispensing wisdom from on high to both sides of the political aisle.
The conservative movement should make its position clear. Such "reasonable Democrats" should work on reforming their own party; until they do so, they should refrain from lecturing the other party. If they cannot align their votes or their concrete recommendations with President Trump's agenda, they should get out of the way.
When the excitement of the past week's executive orders wears off and the administration gets into the grinding phase, these coalitional questions will be more important than ever. The conservative movement should resist an "all-are-welcome" policy because certain factions can detract from the mission. In short: yes to the Tech Right and the dissident Democrats; no to the principled conservatives and reasonable centrists. Making such distinctions will maximize the second Trump administration's political potential and ensure that the right things get done.
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