From several meetings and events I’ve been to lately, including CPAC, as well as reports from others across the country that I’ve heard, a revolution is brewing in the Republican Party.
It couldn’t be more necessary.
The leadership is having trouble keeping up with a rank-and-file who are increasingly distressed, even appalled, by the rapid changes in our country being instigated by the new administration and its phony claims of collegiality.
With notable exceptions, much of the GOP leadership, elected officials, and party officials have been relatively passive, treating the situation as if it were just another changing of the guard, business as usual, but it’s far more than that.
The United States is being rendered unrecognizable. Every day, we see new evidence of that in all sectors of our society.
It’s not the least surprising that in extreme times, people who would normally be going about their business are suddenly alarmed and concerned.
These revolutionaries are not, in my observation, particularly alt-right (if that term is any more than a media construct) or extremists of any sort. They aren’t those lunkheads who thought it was productive to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6.
They are normal people who are outraged, many of them leaders in their own right, in the business community and elsewhere, and not the types who would ordinarily be storming the barricades, but they suddenly feel an urgency.
It’s justified.
Nor is this revolution any longer about Donald Trump. It shouldn’t be. It’s about the people and comes from the bottom up. Trump certainly awakened the rank-and-file and continues to play a part—a large part—but his courage has inspired others; it hasn’t spread, however, to party leadership who seem and act bewildered.
This rebellion is occurring, not entirely surprisingly, in red states where conservatives and libertarians are watching an assault on their home territories as the Democratic Party has them in their crosshairs, determined to turn their states blue. They already have done so in many of their cities from Atlanta to Memphis, Tennessee.
At a recent Republican meeting in a red state, a longtime state senator condescendingly blew off a question about why their Republican-dominated legislature wasn’t following the lead of other states in restricting Big Tech, and was thoroughly booed by those in attendance. In fact, they were shouting at him.
If that doesn’t change, it’s almost certain the coming primary seasons will be a bloodletting almost never before seen in the Republican Party. Many leaders, including well-known incumbents, will topple unless they respond.
Many people who never before considered running for public office are doing so.
This is a good thing and harks back to the American founding, although all should be carefully vetted. That someone has been a success in business, the arts, or education doesn’t automatically mean they will perform well in public office.
But people should be encouraged to run and the door opened up. Who would have guessed that Trump would have created a boom in the American economy, reducing minority unemployment to record lows, while making the biggest strides in decades toward Middle East peace?
He isn’t the only American citizen with untapped skills.
But the GOP should not become the party of the New Robespierres in all this, chopping off every head that may have let us down in the past.
We must recognize that people can change and grow. Those elected and party officials who have let us down or been passive are, in many instances, capable of change, or even doing good work for the country if they put their minds and hearts to it.
We just have to make sure they do. If they don’t, we shouldn’t hesitate to replace them.
Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, editor-at-large for The Epoch Times. His most recent books are “The GOAT” (fiction) and “I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already” (nonfiction). He can be found on Parler as @rogerlsimon.
