Notable & Quotable: Will the GOP Get it Backward?
Former President Donald Trump gestures during a rally in Conroe, Texas, Jan. 29.
Photo:
GO NAKAMURA/REUTERS
Byron York
writing for the Washington Examiner, Feb. 8:
There is a wrenching debate going on inside the Republican Party over the simplest of questions: Should the party look backward or forward? . . .
GOP politicians who want to move on face a lot of resistance from two very different quarters. First, the Democratic Party very much wants to keep talking about 2020. After all, House Speaker
created the Jan. 6 committee in part to keep the idea of a Trump-Republican “insurrection” alive into the 2022 midterm elections. Democrats want to talk about 2020 because they believe they can use it to defeat Republicans.
And then there is Trump, who in recent days has been using his press releases—the equivalent of his old tweets—to dwell on various 2020 issues. . . .
To look toward the future, Republicans have to avoid the traps being set by Pelosi and the Democrats, and also by Trump. For the GOP, the backward-or-forward question will be the most difficult, and the most consequential, issue in coming months and years.
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Appeared in the February 9, 2022, print edition as ‘Notable & Quotable: Backward.’
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