Many times over the last several years, Donald Trump’s political opponents on the Right claimed he was a drag on the Republican Party’s political prospects. This argument was never very plausible. The reversals that congressional Republicans suffered over the last six years (such as losing the House and Senate by narrow margins) were well within the normal range of the vicissitudes of electoral politics. But whatever meager credibility such criticisms may have possessed has now been completely laid to rest by President Trump’s astonishing return to power, bringing with him Republican control of both houses of Congress—a feat accomplished in the face of unprecedented opposition from some of the most powerful forces in American political life. Trump has proven himself to be a potent political force and a boost to the fortunes of his party.
Trump, however, will only be around for four more years. If the American Right is to continue to succeed after he has left the scene, it will have to learn the secrets of his success. This means admitting that Trump’s impressive wins are the fruit not of mere luck, nor even of his extraordinary energy, but of his even more extraordinary political astuteness. As the pollster Patrick Ruffini remarked, simply but profoundly, in an election night X post: “Donald Trump understands what politics is about at a fundamental level.”