Scott Miller

Future of the Republican Party

With the Trump Administration entering its final weeks and the elections (mostly) in the rear-view mirror, Republicans and other interested bystanders are focused on the future of the GOP. The Trump presidency highlighted deep rifts within the party and changes in the demographics of “Republican” voters.

Groups such as the Lincoln Project, comprised of high profile Republicans (and former R’s), are attempting to pull the party back towards its Reagan/Bush/Bush-era platform, while populists and the “Trump base” seem to be heading in a very different direction.

• Has the Republican party fundamentally changed?
• Can this rift be healed with Trump out of office, or is it much deeper than one man?
• What will the Republican party look like (platform, demographics) in, say 4-8 years?
• What does this mean for Democrats and the Democratic Party?

From Becky Wentworth: Inside the Lincoln Project’s War on Trump (The New Yorker)

What should the Dems (and R’s) do about Trump?

We’ll also discuss how President Trump enters this calculus.

• Should the Biden Administration push to identify Federal criminal charges against him, or should they focus elsewhere (unless an “egregious” violation of the law is identified)?
• What if Trump provides a Presidential pardon to himself?
• Is a Trump run for the Presidency a realistic possibility for 2024 and, if so, how should this possibility inform D’s and R’s strategies?

The Trump Administration has made substantial progress in broadening the number of Muslim-majority countries normalizing their diplomatic relations with Israel. But that progress has come at the cost of numerous “side-deals,” providing country-specific incentives. Several of the incentives offered are considered controversial. So this week’s topic will be:

Should the Biden Administration disavow agreements the Trump Administration has made with various countries in exchange for normalization of relations with Israel?

We can also discuss the parliamentary turmoil in Israel and how/whether that should affect the calculus.

Michael Sinclair has provided a handful of brief articles on the subject (all PDF’d for our discussion):

• Trump Incentives for Signing Peace Accords With Israel Could Be at Risk (NY Times)
• Trump’s Mideast deals are good for Israel. But they involve bad trade-offs (WaPo Opinion)

• As a Parting gift to Israel, the Trump Administration Pushes Sudan and Morocco to Recognized Israel (Wilson Center)
• Experts react: What the Morocco-Israel deal means for the Middle East (Atlantic Council)
• Israel, Morocco agree to normalize relations in US-brokered deal (Al Jazeera)
• Analyzing Trump’s Middle East peace (Jerusalem Post)

Remember: If you’d like to participate in the Zoom discussion, register on the Blue Hill Public Library events calendar.

As a follow-up to our discussion a couple of weeks ago about what President-elect Biden’s cabinet picks say about his upcoming Administration, we’ll focus in on the Secretary of Defense nominee and some people’s expressed concerns about how recently he retired from the Navy.

The discussion will be centered around this Op-Ed piece by Dennis Blair, former DNI and a Navy man himself. In the attached PDF, I attached both Blair’s commentary and some of the comments in response.

If you haven’t re-joined the Beyond Labels discussion (for now, via Zoom), you can register on the Blue Hill Public Library’s events calendar to get the Zoom link. We meet from 10:00am to noon every Monday.