The right is aflame about the midterms disaster. Populists say the Iran war caused the landslide defeat, while more traditional conservatives think the problem was President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Now, with control of the party up for grabs heading into a presidential election cycle, each faction seeks to pin blame for the debacle on the other.
This increasingly bitter battle threatens to derail whatever chance the GOP has of climbing out of the hole it finds itself in. The fact is that the two sides need each other to win a general election. So let me make a suggestion: Rather than engaging in fruitless internecine warfare, the party — and its eventual 2028 standard-bearer — should offer a populist-conservative fusion.
Why not take the best ideas from both wings and place them within a narrative that emphasizes two paramount principles: dignity and liberty?
Trump’s 2024 victory was driven by his gains with independents upset about the rising cost of living. Inflation was high during President Joe Biden’s administration, and wages did not keep up. The typical American household was still no richer in real terms in 2024 than it was in 2019. No wonder the Kamala Harris campaign never took off. Swing voters remembered Trump’s pre-pandemic economy, which featured rising real wages, and wanted those days back.
They did not come back, alas — at least not yet. The tariffs and the war are both reasons for that. Tariffs put price pressure on importers, many of whom passed those costs onto consumers. (Many did not, which is why prices rose less than many economists predicted.) Tariffs also hurt the economy in other ways. Retaliatory tariffs, especially from large trading partners like Canada and China, reduced exports and disrupted supply chains. Firms, farms and workers have all had to deal with the fallout. They are, quite predictably, unhappy.
Now add the war with Iran. The national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline increased from $2.98 in late February to $4.36 a month ago, when early voting started in much of the country. The rising cost of energy rippled throughout the economy, contributing to a significant increase in inflation. Real wages, which had been slowly increasing in 2025, have been declining for months as a result.
These issues are almost perfectly engineered to cause an intra-GOP ruckus, because they are touchstones for the things each faction believes are wrongheaded about the other. Non-Trump conservatives oppose tariffs on principle and see their adoption as a betrayal of GOP ideals. Populists see recurring wars of choice, usually in the Middle East, as a counterproductive waste. Meanwhile, populists see America’s deindustrialization as a national and social catastrophe, while non-Trump conservatives see Iran as a threat to the world.
Each side is willing to incur short-term pain on its priority issue in the pursuit of what it believes will be long-term gain. Neither is willing to tolerate the slightest inconvenience caused by the other side’s pursuit of its core priority.
This could be a recipe for disaster. Civil wars are especially vicious, and those waged over ideals are even worse. It’s always possible to compromise with an adversary. Compromising with an enemy, especially when that enemy used to be your friend, is extremely difficult.
But to be successful, that is exactly what the next Republican presidential nominee will have to do. Populists may have the upper hand in Republican primaries, but they need votes from non-Trump Republicans to win a general election. Non-Trump Republicans could win a nomination contest in the right circumstances, but many populists are former Democrats and independents who never liked non-Trump Republicans to begin with. Winning a nomination on an old-guard platform will probably lead to an old-guard result: defeat. There’s no point in rerunning the campaigns of 2008 and 2012.
The nominee could try to bridge this gap with a purely policy-driven accommodation, splitting the difference on tariffs, taxes, military operations and the host of other issues that divide the party. But half measures might be an even worse approach than planting a flag with one faction or the other. The party’s divisions are matters of principle based on competing visions of the American promise: One side places an emphasis on human liberty, while the other prioritizes human dignity.
This means that the 2028 candidate, when he or she emerges, has to do something that no Republican nominee has comprehensively done since Ronald Reagan: construct a public philosophy that unites disparate factions in the pursuit of a common goal. That may sound highfalutin, but it’s what every great American statesman has done when creating a new majority coalition.
I am not that great American statesmen, but here are some of my ideas for fusing the two worldviews into an electorally appealing package: On the economy, take a middle, moderate path on tariffs that includes breaks for strategic partners. On overseas interventions, tend to America’s military alliances while also requiring allies to take first responsibility for their own defense. On immigration, replace direct Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations with tightened employment rules that dry up the ability of illegal immigrants to work.
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln all brought former enemies into a new party based on a new understanding of America. It’s been done before, and the moment is ripe for it to be done again.
It’s always darkest before the dawn, and after last week’s clobbering, Republicans are in a very dark place. Their leaders can be forgiven for their urge to wallow in despair and lash out at rivals. The person who can summon the sunrise, however, will look in a different place for inspiration. They will remember Lincoln’s admonition that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” and act accordingly.
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