Next Challenge for Trump, After Tightening Grip Over GOP, Will Be Lowering Prices Before Midterm Elections

The decisive defeat of Congressman Thomas Massie in Kentucky is a landmark in defining who leads the Republican Party.Mr. Massie had won by 65 percent and 98 percent in the last two elections respectively — then he collided with President Trump.Mr. Trump has had a good run recently in reshaping the GOP into a much more MAGA Party. He defeated at least five incumbent state senators in Indiana (with several more in recounts). His all-out effort to defeat Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana after Dr. Cassidy voted to impeach him led to the incumbent senator running in third place. Six years ago, Dr. Cassidy had won with 59 percent of the vote.Another Trump opponent, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensberger, came in third in the primary for the GOP nomination for Georgia’s governor — without any notable pressure from Mr. Trump.There is a stunning contrast between Mr. Trump’s methodical effort to reshape the GOP into an aggressive reform-oriented machine capable of taking on the Democrats and the National Establishment and what happened to President Franklin D Roosevelt when he tried to purge the conservative Democrats in 1938.In 1936, Roosevelt had won 60.8 percent of the popular vote and carried every state except Vermont and Maine. Mr. Roosevelt believed that he had a mandate to move America to a more liberal, big government, centralized Washington bureaucracy system of doing things.The Supreme Court was still dominated by small-government, constitutionally conservative justices. On issue after issue, they rejected Mr. Roosevelt’s left-wing views.On February 5, 1937, shortly after FDR’s landslide, he proposed expanding the Supreme Court to 15 members from nine. The idea of packing the high court was so unpopular that Roosevelt’s proposal collapsed.He was so angry he decided to purge five key senior Democrats and launched a campaign to defeat them. The effort was a disaster for Roosevelt. Senators Walter George of Georgia, Cotton Ed Smith of South Carolina, Millard Tydings of Maryland, and Guy Gillette of Iowa were all re-elected handily despite Roosevelt’s personal campaign attacking them. Only Congressman John O’Connor of New York lost.Mr. Roosevelt was so shaken by his own misreading of the American people, his inaccurate and exaggerated sense of how useful his popularity would be, and the degree to which the American people were repudiating liberalism, that it led him to be incredibly cautious in trying to help the British stop Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War II.Mr. Roosevelt had been the only chief executive in the modern era who set out to profoundly reshape his own party and he clearly failed.The result of the Trump party reshaping effort clearly makes him the most powerful party leader in modern times. You could make a case for Presidents Jefferson, Jackson, or Lincoln as party builders and shapers. However, no one since 1865 has come anywhere close to Mr. Trump’s influence over his party. That’s a 161-year record.The challenge for Mr. Trump is to bring the same tough-minded ruthless leadership to opening up the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and bringing down the price of gasoline quickly enough for the American people to be happy by Labor Day, which, with early voting, has to be the new deadline for shaping election outcomes.If Mr. Trump can wage the kind of campaign he is capable of — and the price of gasoline doesn’t make it impossible to arouse the American people — he may win the biggest off-year election since Jefferson and the Jeffersonians methodically wiped out the Federalists. When you remember that the Jeffersonians won every off-year election from 1798 to 1810 — and drove the Federalists to desperate experiments (such as inventing gerrymandering) it is clear that a Mr. Trump-MAGA-GOP victory this November would put him in position to have two more years of aggressive, steady, reform.Then he would be in the league of Washington and Lincoln as a president of enormous historic consequence.

Next Challenge for Trump, After Tightening Grip Over GOP, Will Be Lowering Prices Before Midterm Elections

More from the New York Sun

‘Top Gun’ at 40: The Real Story Behind the Blockbuster That Sealed Tom Cruise’s Stardom

Justice Alito’s Duty To Sit

Progressive Candidates in Colorado Call for Democratic Governor’s Impeachment

Women’s Sports Podcasts Are Fueling the Next Media Gold Rush

Trump Drops IRS Lawsuit as DOJ Creates $1.776 Billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’

New York Times Reporters ‘Exasperated’ by Column Claiming Israeli Abuse of Palestinian Prisoners, ‘Suspicious’ of Sourcing

Israel Reportedly Jams Gaza Flotilla’s Radio With Britney Spears Hit

Judge Throws Out Some, Permits Some of Evidence Collection in Mangione Trial