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At The Daily Wire, we strive to provide our audience not just with accurate reporting and insightful commentary, but with the tools they need to parse the issues of our time. That\u2019s why we\u2019re thrilled to partner with our friends at Manhattan Institute to bring you exclusive commentary and research from their world-class team of scholars.<\/em><\/p>\n Each week, Manhattan Institute scholars will bring their analysis right here to The Daily Wire \u2014 from insights into politics and hot-button cultural issues to original research on everything from education and race to public safety and the economy.<\/em><\/p>\n You\u2019ll hear from Manhattan Institute scholars you know and love, like Christopher Rufo and Heather Mac Donald, as well as scholars you\u2019ve not encountered before. But no matter the scholar or the subject, these pieces will be as engaging as they are informative. They\u2019ll also highlight what Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro called<\/a> Manhattan Institute\u2019s \u201cunwavering optimism about America.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n We\u2019re excited to launch this series with a piece from Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam. In it, Reihan looks past the 2026 midterms to the 2028 presidential election and offers a roadmap for how Republicans might win in their first-ever post-Trump race. We hope you enjoy. \u2013 The Editors<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Since he came down the golden escalator in 2015, President Donald Trump has been at the center of American public life. It\u2019s strange, therefore, to realize that the Trump era is slowly but inexorably drawing to a close.<\/p>\n Republicans look likely<\/a>\u00a0to lose the House of Representatives in November, which will almost certainly bog down the rest of Trump\u2019s administration in interminable impeachment hearings. And the president is increasingly sustaining attacks from within his own party, whether that be from the\u00a0Epstein-obsessed fringe<\/a>\u00a0or from\u00a0those unhappy with<\/a>\u00a0his social media presence.<\/p>\n All of this raises the question that has for years felt unthinkable: what comes after Trump? To an increasingly loud faction on the online right, the answer is a noxious blend of extreme ideologies. But that would be a mistake. Keeping the Trump Train going means embracing Trump\u2019s 2024 strategy: playing to the majority of Americans on issues on which the right can win.<\/p>\n For the past decade, Trump has been the glue that binds together an otherwise fractious \u2014 or perhaps incoherent \u2014 GOP. What, besides Trump, does the party stand for? Free enterprise or organized labor? Isolationism or peace through strength? Controlling illegal immigration or prohibiting all immigration? Trump kept these divisions suppressed through his charisma, but they are likely to spring to the fore when he is gone.<\/p>\n One group has a vision for what comes next \u2014\u00a0the online Right, also sometimes called the \u201cwoke Right\u201d or, as Daily Wire editor emeritus\u00a0Ben Shapiro recently\u00a0labeled them<\/a>, the \u201chorseshoe Right.\u201d This loose collection of podcasters, posters, and fringe politicians are mobilized around a clear policy platform: skepticism of business and earned wealth; opposition to all immigration; a preference for isolationism and sometimes even open kowtowing to Russia and China; and in general, a politics powered by resentment.<\/p>\n The online right has a clear thesis. To them, Trump\u2019s success was based on his willingness to break taboos and \u2014 by implication \u2014 to move toward their preferred policy positions. If the GOP wants to hold on to the Trump magic, they argue, then it needs to veer even more towards their particular brand of rightism.<\/p>\n As Trump\u2019s era ends, this argument seems increasingly appealing to his would-be inheritors. In Florida, former debate coach and Washington, D.C., resident<\/a>\u00a0James Fishback is running a\u00a0very online campaign<\/a>\u00a0for the governorship. Republican dissenters like Rep. Thomas Massie (KY) and former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have embraced the online right\u2019s love of conspiracy and its skepticism towards an assertive foreign policy. Even Vice President JD Vance, perhaps anxious about keeping Trump\u2019s coalition intact, seems wary of provoking the online right.<\/p>\n It is easy to be seduced by loud voices on X, especially between elections. But the online right\u2019s theory of the electorate doesn\u2019t match up with reality. Nearly 80% of Americans\u00a0believe<\/a>\u00a0immigration is a \u201cgood thing\u201d for America. They don\u2019t back open borders, but they\u2019re also not in favor of halting immigration outright. Americans are nearly\u00a0twice as likely<\/a>\u00a0to say America should take an \u201cactive part\u201d in world affairs as they are to say it should \u201cstay out.\u201d It really is possible to oppose forever wars while supporting the judicious use of force to defend American interests. And while economic nihilism is trending online, a majority of Americans\u00a0view free enterprise positively<\/a>, even in the face of relentless doom-mongering.<\/p>\n Nor does the online right\u2019s theory of coalition-building make much sense. To state the obvious, the goal of a campaign is to attract more voters than you repel, not to boost social media engagement. Yet in the online right\u2019s model, Republicans shouldn\u2019t be fighting to consolidate the \u201cnormie\u201d majority \u2014 the tens of millions of non-ideological voters who care about safe streets, good jobs, decent schools, low taxes, affordable homes, cheap groceries, and other unglamorous essentials. That would be too straightforward. Rather, the online right wants Republicans to lean into strident rhetoric on Wall Street, Israel, and other fixations of the campus Left. The goal is to pick up \u201cpopulist\u201d voters currently enchanted with the likes of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n Is the idea that there are more Mamdani voters who would cross over to the GOP if the party were truly committed to siding with Hamas over Israel than there are, say, suburban swing voters who will support Republicans if they\u2019re less likely to tank the economy than are the Democrats? Or is it that there are millions of Gen Z socialists clamoring for mass deportations? Let\u2019s just say the political logic here isn\u2019t airtight.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an eerie similarity between the arguments advanced by the online right, in fact, and those preferred by portions of the radical activist left. Both insist that mobilizing the base \u2014 always composed of true believers \u2014\u00a0is more important than persuading marginal voters. Both enforce coalitional discipline through ideology, policing out anyone who disagrees with them. Both\u00a0exercise outsized power<\/a>\u00a0despite their small share of the coalition. Both care more about the emotional satisfaction they derive from believing themselves to be edgy or interesting than they do about accomplishing real things in the real world. If Democrats lost in 2024 because they listened too closely to transgender activists, Republicans risk doing the same if they listen too closely to the online right.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the better way forward? Simple: replicate Trump\u2019s winning playbook from 2024.<\/p>\n Donald Trump secured an Electoral College landslide and popular-vote plurality in 2024 by pivoting toward the center, not away from it. He took advantage of Democrats\u2019 unpopular positions on the border, gender, and runaway inflation, aligning himself with the median voter fed up with the status quo. That strategy dramatically widened the coalition, which is why he overperformed<\/a>\u00a0with the black and Latino voters Democrats have long thought of as \u201ctheirs.\u201d<\/p>\n These voters didn\u2019t vote for Trump to be radical; they voted for Trump because they were against radicalism. They support law and order, meritocracy, and the\u00a0opportunity to lead a decent middle-class life<\/a>. And while many of them are\u00a0dissatisfied<\/a>\u00a0with the direction the administration has gone, they\u2019ve evinced a willingness to vote for these values again, especially as the left seems poised to run on an even more extreme platform than they did in 2024.<\/p>\n One of the open questions, of course, is who \u2014 if anyone \u2014 will champion this \u201cpopularist\u201d lane in the 2028 primary. Whoever does will clearly have the winning strategy for the general: unite conservatives and moderates against the hard left. Just as importantly, he or she will be doing the most important thing for the next nominee: picking up Trump\u2019s torch.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\nClick here for more Manhattan Institute content.<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n