Opinion
By Karl Rove
The new White House chief of staff, Stephen Miller, was full of praise for President Trump last Friday. Mr. Miller credited his boss with having “saved the Republican Party from the ash heap of history” and “made it stronger, more popular, and more resilient than ever before.”
Come again? The GOP has just lost eight or nine Senate seats, at least 44 House seats, and five to seven governorships. Mr. Miller’s comments baffled many Republicans and probably angered some. Perhaps he felt he had to flatter Mr. Trump. Worse—and a real possibility—is that he and the president actually believe it.
Mr. Miller’s rise signals that the White House will fight hard against the investigations congressional Democrats will launch in January. He’s the one-man war room the president wants.
Oversight hearings could further damage the administration’s reputation on two fronts: corruption and immigration enforcement. Investigations into grift and self-dealing could hurt. So could hearings on the administration’s moving beyond targeting violent criminal aliens by sending poorly trained, armed ICE agents after construction workers, waiters and farmhands. Images of their children being swept up too cost the GOP, especially with suburban voters.
Still, Democrats could damage themselves if they go overboard, as Republicans did in pursuing President Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky in the 1990s. Americans grew sick of it, believing the GOP congressional majority had more important responsibilities.
But Republicans can’t simply wait for Democrats to stumble. To recover their standing with voters, they have to go on offense, not only opposing the Democrats’ bad bills but offering a conservative agenda of their own. The White House has signaled it will do so with a wave of executive actions. That isn’t enough for congressional Republicans. They’ll make a mistake if they play follow-the-leader and wait for direction from the West Wing.
After all, those are the same geniuses whose principal idea for lowering the cost of living was to promise every adult a $5,000 check if Republicans won the midterms. Besides, the courts have struck down many of the administration’s executive actions. And Mr. Trump has only two years left in office. He’s unlikely to grow more popular in that time. If Republican officeholders in Washington and the states want to restore their relevance and stay in office, they’d better start doing what it takes to win back voters’ trust. Congressional Republicans need a positive, compelling agenda of their own. So do their counterparts in the states.
Democrats will be in the majority in Congress, but they’re also in a pickle. They constantly shouted “affordability” during the campaign but didn’t give voters much of an idea of their solutions. They had slogans like “more money in the pocket,” but not much beyond that.
Democrats also talked a lot about “working people.” That wasn’t because Democrats had a concrete agenda to help them. It was to highlight Mr. Trump’s inaction on the cost of living and his preoccupation with expensive remodeling plans.
Republicans must recover a neglected political habit: treating governing as serious work rather than performance art. They should offer proposals to lower costs, make healthcare more affordable, expand the housing supply, ease the federal regulatory burden, and cut wasteful and fraudulent spending. Most Americans still instinctively understand that inflation comes from too much money chasing too few goods, and wasteful spending is part of that equation.
Republicans must do this even if their ideas have little chance of passage by the lopsided Democratic congressional majorities. More important than persuading Democratic senators and representatives, Republicans must again convince voters the GOP has the right answers for America’s future.
Failing that, the Republican Party’s time in the wilderness could last far longer and the damage to our country be far greater, especially if the left dictates the Democratic agenda.
The GOP can’t return to some past bright era. It has to chart a course for the future. Republicans should draw on timeless conservative principles to meet America’s challenges. As Lincoln said, “as our case is new, so must we think anew, and act anew.” The party of Lincoln should heed this sage advice.
The column by Mr. Rove, courtesy of KarlRove.com, was first published in The Wall Street Journal.
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process. Notably, Mr. Rove was known as “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 winning campaigns.