The GOP Can it be Republican again?

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What is conservatism?  How can conservative principals replace MAGA and populism in the Republican Party 

Connect with Our Republican Legacy ourrepublicanlegacy.com

The Republican Party is headed for a reckoning, and the real battle is not going to be fought on cable news. It is going to be fought in precinct meetings, county conventions, state parties, and the delegate math that decides who gets to call themselves “conservative” in 2028.

We dig into the mission of Our Republican Legacy and why it is organizing inside the GOP rather than building a third party or another think tank. You will hear the five principles they want to unify around: peace through strength, free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, national unity, and the Constitution and the rule of law. We also talk NATO and alliances, tariffs and free trade, and how rapid tech change and AI pressure-test both free enterprise and civil liberties.

 Politically homeless?  but still care about constitutional government, this conversation gives you a concrete path to engage before the 2028 presidential cycle accelerates. Subscribe for more idea-driven conversations, share this with a friend who argues in good faith, and leave a review with the principle you think the country can’t afford to lose.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Ideas Matter

Michele McAloon 0:00

If you're listening to Crossword Cultural Clues, Lead to the Truth of the Word, and my name is Michelle McLean, your host. You can find out more about the show and about me at bookclues.com. Okay, folks, this podcast is about ideas, ideas that have historical significance in lives, in events, in people, in documents, in philosophy and theology, everything. Ideas. So today we are talking about an idea, and that is about conservative principles and how to put those ideas of conservative principles in action. So I hope you enjoy this podcast. It is a little different from my usual narrative book podcast, but I thought as we move forward to the elections, start talking about some of the ideas that have made up our republic. All right. Thank you. God bless. Happy listening. Rather than interviewing an author of a nonfiction book, we are interviewing two gentlemen from an organization called Our Republican Legacy. And it is an attempt to bring back Republican principles into the Republican Party. That is a monumental task these days, gentlemen. I am welcoming Mr. Chris Vance and Dr. Merrill Matthews. Mr. Vance is a senior advisor for our Republican legacy, and he's a former chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. And we have Dr. Merrill Matthews, who was 25 years resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation. You've really spent a lifetime in public policy, haven't you, Dr. Matthews?

SPEAKER_02 1:43

I my first career was in teaching philosophy at the college level and then about 35 years in the nonprofit think tank world.

Michele McAloon 1:50

Okay, very good. And he has a weekly columnist for the Hill. And actually, I read your column today. So look encourage the audience to go find Dr. Merrill Matthews at The Hill. All right, gentlemen, let's go ahead

Defining Conservatism From The Roots

Michele McAloon 2:05

and start. Let's start from the very, very basic. Dr. Matthews, how would you describe conservative is?

SPEAKER_02 2:14

You know, I would say that with conservatism, what you're doing is you're you're taking the original founders of the country, the Constitution, and you're taking a lot of tradition in terms of economic thought and what we know works, and you take that and you're holding on to that. And interestingly, in 1960, a group of 100 young conservatives went out to William F. Buckley's home in Sharon, Connecticut, and wrote what was called the Sharon Statement. Today we have the uh Principles First Group, which has their principles. You have the Freedom Conservatives, the Free Cons, which is more of the think tanks that have their principles, and you have our Republican legacy. But the point I want to make here, Michelle, is that all of these, they they hold the same basic principles. You could look at all four statements, and there's a lot of similarity to them to them. And that's because we're trying to conserve the best of economic and political wisdom that has been handed down to us in order to be able to run a country that grows and that prospers and that works well for freedom.

unknown 3:19

Mr.

Michele McAloon 3:19

Vance, would you say conservatism, and I'm afraid that people think of it this way now, is that conservatism is something to stop progressivism of liberal democracy. People don't understand that conservatism actually is a, in a nutshell, it's its own encapsulated way of thinking and approach for government.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Well, I think that's right. And the terms have changed over the decades, over the centuries, even. I mean, in the very beginning, the Republican Party was the progressive party in this country when it was founded. It was the Democrats who wanted to conserve the status quo, including a very limited federal government and states' rights to the point that they allowed slavery, no federal involvement in the economy. It was Republicans who wanted the to use the power of government to elevate, you know, the little guy with land grant universities and building the Transcontinental Railroad and of course ending slavery so that small landowners could compete against giant slaveholders. I mean, that's Lincoln was motivated to a large degree because he saw what happened to his father, who couldn't compete with the big slave-owning plantations. But over time, the Industrial Revolution changed the meaning of these terms. If you really, really, really boil it down, what it means to be a conservative is to preserve the basic notion of a free market economy, limited government, taxes as low as possible. And the progressives have mostly, since William's Jennings Bryan particularly, been about one thing the redistribution of wealth. The Democrats only have one idea, and that's take from the rich and give to the poor. They're the Robin Hood Party. It doesn't work to the kind of degree they want. So that to me is what modern American conservatism is about is peace through strength, preserve our our alliances and our military, and preserve a free market system of economics.

Factions Inside Two Parties

Michele McAloon 5:24

Okay. Is it still viable in these times? Is it still, is this something that is in danger? Because it's almost like we have four parties now. We have liberal, liberal Democrats. We I guess there's some moderate Democrats. We have kind of moderate Republicans, and we have, you know, kind of MAGA. There's some hard divides coming even within the parties themselves.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yes, it's more than viable. It's inevitable, for better or worse. I mean, I spent, I left the party in 2017, and I now I'm trying, I'm back and trying to solve our problems, but I looked hard at forming a third party or I ran for office as an independent. For some reason, the American people believe God and his wisdom has come down and said, there shall only be two parties, and thy names must be Republican and Democrat. So there's going to be big divisions within the two parties, but we are stuck with a two-party system. So therefore, we cannot continue to allow one of our two major parties to become a neofascist mob that is a danger to democracy.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

And Michelle, I think you hit the right point, which is you've got two major parties, but you've got an insurgency group in both of those major parties. From the uh Republican side, it's the MAGA group, which is the most vocal, I would say the most energized, but also a small portion of traditional Republicans. And with the Democrats, you have the Bernie Sanders, liberal progressives, who now, you know, used to, we would say, well, that that Democrat is a socialist. And that was meant to be as a sort of a pejorative name. Now they've freely embraced that, many of them. Yeah, I am a socialist. That's what I'm for. So you have that part, and that's the energy and excitement within the Democratic Party. And I think the real question which you sort of hinted at is: are there enough traditional Republicans who will, once Donald Trump is out of office, will they turn back to a more traditional Republican view? And the same thing's true with Democrats. Are there enough traditional Democrats, Gary Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, Rahm Emanuel, who's on the liberal side, but they're just not, they're not Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez liberals. Will they be able to take control again? And I don't know that we have the answer to that yet.

Does Money Really Drive Politics

Michele McAloon 7:47

Doesn't it come down, and I'd love to hear both of your opinions, doesn't it also come, it comes down to money, because the money is flowing towards these more extreme groups? I'm guessing that is what's happening. So the all the money is flowing towards MAGA, towards the populist on the right. And you know what? Democrats on the left, that's populism too. That is, you know, they're Marxist socialists, and the money tends to be flowing there. Why is the money not flowing in the middle? And you know what? I'm prepared for you to tell me that I'm wrong, too.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

You're wrong.

Michele McAloon 8:18

But that okay, you're wrong.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

And this is why the I think I've I've spent my life in in American politics, running campaigns, running for I've run for office 12 times myself. The the influence of money in politics is greatly overstated. Really? Okay. Money follows power, which if moderates are winning elections, the money would flow to the moderates. And there's a whole bunch of people that are going to contribute to any Republican because they want to stop the Democrats. And there's a whole bunch of Democrats are going to contribute to any Democrat because they want to stop the Republicans. And people, political actors are motivated by ideology and principle and values and the things they believe in, not a desire to get rich. Now, interest groups, that's different. They they donate out of fear of what the government can do to them. But uh, if people wanted to get rich, they wouldn't go into politics and go sell stocks and bonds. So, of course, money matters, but it doesn't drive politics. Politics drives where the money goes.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

And I'll add, Michelle, to that, that in the California governor's race, Tom Steyer, a billionaire, spent a lot of money trying to get one of the two slots to be California's next governor. He didn't make it. In Texas, on the Republican side, uh, John Cornyn, this current senator who was running against Ken Paxton, who was a challenger, spent a lot more than Ken Paxton did. Ken Paxton didn't actually spend much money in this primary race. And Ken Paxton won by a two to one in the uh runoff election. So a lot of money was spent, and in those cases, both the uh those two people lost that spent the most money.

Michele McAloon 9:58

Can

Can Moderates Still Win Elections

Michele McAloon 9:59

a moderate get elected now?

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Can they? Yes, absolutely. I mean, for they do all the time. What office are you talking about, though? Right now, and we're about to see this, the the pendulum is constantly swinging in this country. That's why it is. That's why the Republicans just had a very good election in 24 and they're likely to get crushed here in a few weeks in 26. The American people are very dissatisfied with everything they've seen from both parties in recent years. A moderate can absolutely get elected if he can get his party's nomination. Because again, people vote against the other party right now. So, yeah, and I think more and more the American people want some moderation after the years of chaos and rage they've seen.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

And Michelle, the I I think an awful lot of Republicans and Democrats are actually moderates who are elected, but they have the problem that if they come out and express their moderation, they will end up being attacked by either the left or the right in their party. And so I suspect that if once Donald Trump is out, many of the Republicans who would like to be moderates again, and moderates in the conservative sense, will again be able to step up and say, I disagree with that, I don't want to go in that direction. Both in the Republican and Democratic side, they face a lot of problems if they challenge the existing narrative.

Michele McAloon 11:19

You know, it's funny in my conversations with people across the United States and different Americans, I find the two extremes, they reach around and touch each other. They're saying the same thing. And the center right and the center left are actually saying kind of the same thing. I have more in common with a center left person than I do with an extreme right. Or I hate that term extreme right, but the far the right or side of the Republican Party. I have more in common with the center left than I do with the populist MAGA person on a lot of fronts. Not on everything. I'm, you know, I'm pro-life, so that's usually the dividing issue. It's funny how you see how that falls. Okay, let's talk about our Republican legacy.

What Our Republican Legacy Is

Michele McAloon 12:05

And Mr. Vance, you're the senior advisor. What is the mission of our Republican legacy?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

So in the spring of 2024, Senator John Danforth, uh, one of the most distinguished leaders of his generation, worked with Senator Alan Simpson and Senator William Cohen and 34 other very prominent Republican leaders, including now two former vice presidents, two former chairmen of the Republican National Committee, to form our Republican Legacy, which is an advocacy group seeking to keep alive the messaging of the Reaganite Republican Party, the traditional conservative center-right Republican Party. Since its foundation, we've expanded the mission a bit to also be involved in grassroots mobilization. So the bottom line is we are preparing now for the fight to come, the only fight that is really going to matter. And that is the battle for the control and the soul of the Republican Party in 2028, when Donald Trump leaves the stage, and we are focused on nominating the next great Reaganite Republican president. We're not a PAC and we're not focused on the midterms. We're focused on building for 28.

Michele McAloon 13:18

Let me ask you something. How is this different, Mr. Matthews, from some of the other conservative organizations that are out there? From I believe it's Mike Pence's advancing American Freedom. Maybe it used to be the old Heritage Foundation. I love the Heritage Foundation, but how is this, how is your organization different from some of these other conservative movements right now?

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Well, when you're talking about uh advancing American freedom, Mike Pence's organization, I think that's working a little bit more like a think tank than an activist group. The Heritage Foundation, which has been in the 1970s, 1980s, even under the 1990s, was sort of the leading conservative group, but it has shifted so far to the MAGA side that many of its employees have left to go to work for Mike Pence's group. And we need a strong conservative think tank that is working on traditional issues and doing standard free market economics, good foreign policy, and that type of thing. So I think that's what they're trying to do. There are other groups, as I mentioned, the Freedom Conservatives, these are mostly think tanks. I'm a signatory to their principles. Their principles are very similar to what our Republican legacy is. And then the principles first group, I think, tend to be more activists. I think that's fair to say, people who are working to try to get people elected versus people who are trying to change ideas. And there's just, Michelle, there are so many Republicans, I believe, out there who just feel lost. What happened to my party? And how do we go and where do I go now? And so part of what our effort is is to get out and say there is another group out there that if you feel like you're a traditional conservative, a di a traditional free market person, traditional free trade person, and you're looking for a group, here's where you can come and put your anchor, and we'll work to try to get the Republican Party back to those basic principles.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah, Michelle, I want to weigh in on that. This is really important. We are unique. There is no one else doing what we're doing. There have been a ton of organizations founded since Donald Trump took over the party. I was part of several of them. But nobody else is trying to work within the party. We are not a think tank. We're not a pack. We're not like Principles First, where we're basically God, I love Principles First, but they're they're basically just a supper club where they bring people together to hear speakers. We are a faction within the Republican Party trying to work to change the Republican Party. We have thousands of activists nationwide. We now have 30 state chairs. We're basically building a shadow version of the Republican National Committee. We're encouraging our members to sign up and get involved in the Republican Party, become precinct delegates, become delegates to their county convention, state convention. We're trying to take the Republican Party back within the party, which is unusual and it feels like home for me because I was the chairman of a state party. Separate from the contest to win elections with candidates, there's competition within a political party, and that's what we are engaged in.

Michele McAloon 16:25

Okay,

Building A Faction Inside The GOP

Michele McAloon 16:26

so Dr. Matthews, you're head of the Texas chapter, correct? Yes. Tell me about some of the activities like in Texas that Texas is doing to fulfill this mission.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Texas is a challenging state because we're one of the most MAGA states out there. So what I've done is I've sent out emails to the group. We're planning to do a Zoom call here soon to talk about where the elections are going. And that's an effort to try to get those who have signed up with our Republican legacy to just get them engaged and know what's happening within the system. And I think Chris can talk a little bit more about the podcast we're now doing. These are all efforts to reach out to people who have signed up, let give them some information and let them know where they can go. So in some of the states, I think they're working harder to try to get some of the people within the I Republicans' legacy framework to try to run for office, to be precinct chairs and other things. So that's part of what they're doing. Like I said, Texas is a little harder because we are so MAGA here, but we'll hope to have some success with that in the near future.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

We've sent out thousands of texts, thousands of emails out to our supporters nationwide, urging them to get involved in the party and telling them how to do that. The best analogy for this, Michelle, is back in 1961, 62, 63, a group of conservatives famously began working behind the scenes to mobilize grassroots conservatives to support someone for president. And it became the Draft Goldwater movement. And they built an organization and an army, and they then turned it over to Barry Goldwater when he chose to run for president. That's what we're hoping to do. We don't yet know who we're going to support in 2028, but somebody is going to get from us tens of thousands of volunteers and a nationwide infrastructure.

Michele McAloon 18:16

That's pretty amazing because we were talking earlier off the show, uh, Dr. Matthews, about process, right? So I imagine a lot of this has to start at a very ground level. It has to start at a local level. Like you said, the local precincts, the local, that is where the message has to go. I know I come from the state of Alabama, the second most MAGA state in the union after Texas, I think. So we've got Tommy Tupperville, he's going to run for governor. He'll probably win. He'll probably bring a lot of money to the state. So competing against Doug Jones. So I I see it. It is, it's a big challenge. Let's talk about some of your the policy positions, because this is, I think this is really key for somebody who's listening out there now, thinking, okay, how how does this translate into maybe national and local government? What does a moderate Republican policy statement look like?

Five Core Principles That Unite

Michele McAloon 19:16

Mr. Vance?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Well yeah, Senator Danforth is the driving force behind this. And he was very purposeful, and I think brilliant when we founded ORL to say we are going to be united around five principles. We're not going to try and rewrite the entire Republican Party platform. We're going to purposefully stay away from issues that divide Republicans, but we're going to focus on five key things peace through strength, free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, national unity, and the constitution and the rule of law. Those are the things that we're focused on. And so we have been consistently producing policy statements on those issues as they relate to things that are happening today. For instance, you know, if you believe in free enterprise, you cannot believe in protectionist tariffs. And we we've spoken out about that. We we have not put out policy statements on healthcare or education or the environment or even life. Because again, those issues are important, but they sometimes divide Republicans. And it's not our mission to come up with a whole new platform for the party, but just to get it back to focusing on those five core key things.

NATO And Peace Through Strength

Michele McAloon 20:29

Okay. So one of those core key things is the NATO alliance. And you put out a policy statement about the NATO alliance. Dr. Matthews, talk a little bit about that, because I thought, of course, that grabbed my attention.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Well, I think the NATO alliance is one of the best alliances we've ever been in. And one of the alliances that has actually kept war from happening because of the alliance. Ukraine is at part of the center of that, as Russia has attacked Ukraine. So being able to have alliances, both economic and foreign policy, defense alliances, is really critical because that's where you get, that's part of where the unity comes from. Groups that are able to agree on a number of different principles and keep those principles going for decades. President Trump is not a big fan of going of entering fairly agreements like that and tends to be fairly critical of them if he didn't sign them himself. But those have been one of the bulwarks of what has made America strong and prosperous over the decades.

AI Change And Limited Government

Michele McAloon 21:30

One of the things, too, I hate the term progressive because it it's kind of anybody who's not progressive, it's pejorative, right? It makes Republicans look like we're something antiquated. But actually, what again, it's core principles for to allow us to innovate, to allow us to pull on tradition and to move forward. One of the things that I think is so needed right now is we need leaders who can guide us through change, through This technological change. So we need almost leaders who are change agents through technological change. They can lead people to lead through the chaos, the confusion, through in actually how to apply that technology to conservative principles so we can live out conservative principles. And I haven't really heard a voice yet that is doing that. Is this, have you guys heard of anything like this?

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Was I confusing? No. I think both parties are struggling with how to address the issue of AI, for instance, which is freaking everybody out. Now, speaking just for myself, but I think also in line with our principles. Again, if you believe in free enterprise, the best thing the government can do in terms of the new technologies is stay the hell out of the way. Yes, amen, brother. Amen. I trust the market. The market will figure this out. We can't let anybody develop technologies that could be used to break the law, the laws that exist now. But if we're up to the government, you know, we might have had some sort of the the candlemaker lobby might have put Thomas Edison out of business. Let stay out of the way, and the American people in their wisdom and the entrepreneurs that are driving this will figure it out, I believe. I'm out here in the Seattle area. We watched Microsoft and Amazon change the world. And that didn't come from the government, it came from Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. And so, anyway, uh if you believe in free enterprise, I think the government just needs to stay out of these things.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Absolutely. Dr. Matthews, well, I was just going to add that if you believe in the Constitution and the principle of the Constitution, whenever you get major change, there's always a threat to our constitutional freedoms. Could be free speech, could be freedom of religion, freedom of assembly. And so when you're moving through these changes, it is imperative that the role of the Constitution remains key in there as we try to figure out how to create a society that adheres to the Constitution. I think it's fair to say that the Trump administration and President Trump, uh, the Constitution is an obstacle to get around as opposed to a principle that you should be following. And so that's going to be a challenge for us, especially as you get lawmakers in there looking for media attention and other things. They'll oftentimes throw out things which go to Chris's point, throw out new regulations, new government laws, and so forth, which actually get in the way of us being able to move forward with a prosperous free economy.

Michele McAloon 24:32

Right. This is kind of where we sort of started the conversation with. It's about core principles. It's about adhering to core principles. And in those core principles, you can lead change, you can be innovative, but you have to be anchored by core principles. And I sit here in Europe where there is no innovation, there is no entrepreneurialism because guess what? The government just just soaks all the oxygen out of the air. Matter of fact, the the government is in the way. And, you know, whether you agree with Elon Musk or not, I mean, there's no other place in the world something like that would happen or someone could dream that big. And that is not the government. Well, it wasn't. I don't know. You know, I don't know. He's he's a friend of Trump's now, but uh, so that might be a little fuzzy. But this is a this was an innovative man that has just, I mean, he's almost become bigger than the government, which is actually, I think, is going to be a problem too. And we're gonna have to address that through constitutional uh principles. All

How To Join And Prepare For 2028

Michele McAloon 25:34

right. If people are interested in your group, if you are in the state of Alabama, wink wink, how would you go about connecting with our Republican legacy in the Republican Party?

SPEAKER_00 25:48

And the answer to that is the internet, of course. Go to www.ourrepublicanlegacy.com, our Republican Legacy All Word.com, sign up, click the button, sign up, add your name to our list. You'll start to get updates from us. We will, if you are in the state of Alabama, we you we will share your name with our great state chairman there, Julian Boykin, and he will reach out to you about how to get involved in things. And the biggest thing, of course, is it's it's people might be, I'm not sure the word disappointed is correct, but we're not mobilizing people for this election. We're building a list and building an army for 2028. My vision is that when we get to 2028, there'll be a primary in the state of Alabama to allocate the delegates to go to the National Convention. We want to have hundreds and hundreds of volunteers in the state of Alabama ready to work in that campaign. That's the day we're building towards. And it's not far away. People don't realize that the midterms are in about five months. And about five months after that, you're gonna start seeing people announce that they're running for president. By this time next year, Donald Trump will be the Donald Trump will be the lamest of lame ducks. And you're gonna have half a dozen Republicans running for president. It's gonna change everything. And that's the campaign that we are focused on preparing for.

unknown 27:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

And Michelle, let me add to that why it is so important that people sign up now, because you're we're beginning the process so that as soon as the midterm elections are over, the presidential election of 2028 will start right after that. And you want to have people in place, you want to have know who your people are and have them set up so that you can hit the ground running when the presidential election, the presidential process, election process starts at this cut just after the midterm election. So we want this is laying the groundwork to be able to get things done as soon as that election is over.

After Trump And The MAGA Future

Michele McAloon 27:51

Let me ask you something. What do you think is going to happen to the MAGA faction after Trump?

SPEAKER_00 27:57

That's a great question. You know, again, I've spent my life working within the Republican Party. And for my entire adult life, the Reagan, Bush, Romney, Dole, McCain wing of the party was dominant. And that all changed in 2016. And people then think that's permanent. It is not. There was always a Pat Buchanan wing of our party, isolationist, nativist, very negative culture warriors who wanted it to be about culture war issues. They were never in charge. They got their guy in Donald Trump, and through his own charisma, he they took over the party. I still believe they are a minority in our party. I think we're going to end up nominating somebody who is not MAGA. And then the MAGA wing of the party will continue to exist unless they get so frustrated that they leave and form an America First Party, which they've talked about. But they won't be in charge anymore. I don't believe Donald, I don't think anybody else can recreate the coalition Trump has created. So I think the most, the most hardcore MAGA people, people like Stephen Miller, they're gonna, they're gonna be looking at a lifetime of disappointment because they're never gonna get the things they want.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Michelle, I think J.D. Vance is gonna try to be the next MAGA leader. I don't think he'll be able to do that successfully. And I'll just point you back, around 2009, the Tea Party movement exploded. And all of a sudden, all these people interested in conservative politics call themselves the Tea Party. They were influential in some ways for a year or two or three. I saw all kinds of people who had never been involved in politics jump in there and act like they knew everything about politics. But within two, three, four years, it started fading, and we hear nothing about the Tea Party anymore. Some of those people went over to Ma MAGA, uh, others just went back in the Republican Party. A lot of them just went back to being independents and getting out of politics. So I think there's a fair chance that the MAGA movement will end up becoming the Tea Party of the future.

Michele McAloon 30:01

Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. You know, it's also interesting. I wonder what will happen to I don't know if the Democrats can moderate, to tell you the truth. And that's, you know, that I don't I wonder what will happen to them too.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

We haven't talked about that yet. There's gonna be a war in both parties in 2028. It is up for grabs. Clinton, Biden, Obama, wing of the party has been dominant since, you know, uh the the Clintons moved the Democratic Party more towards the center. But the socialist wing of their party, and they are socialists, they are full-on Democratic socialists. They are fighting hard to take the. I don't know what's gonna happen in the Democratic Party. In my state, it is moving hard left. Hard left. We have yeah, I mean, we have a socialist mayor of Seattle, tons of people, tons of Democrats now run as socialists. And the I think 28 is going to be fascinating in both parties.

Michele McAloon 30:58

I I think you're generous calling socialists. I think they're Marxists, to tell you the truth. And it's weird how that has inserted itself into the United States. Just amazing. Gentlemen, any closing comments?

Closing Thoughts On 2028 Stakes

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Chris? Well, just that I think that the number one uh driving factor in American politics is something people don't talk about nearly enough, and that is Donald Trump cannot defy the Constitution or the calendar. He can't run again. He can't run again. That changes everything. We're gonna have a whole new political paradigm in America in just a few months, actually. And we believe that our Republican legacy can contribute towards restoring the Republican Party to core principles, which is absolutely necessary if we're gonna save America.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

I'll just add to that that the Donald Trump's legacy, we've got high inflation now, high gas prices, high uh food prices. We've got a lot of people feel like they can't afford to make just the just the daily living. That's going to affect the broad view of Republicans, even if you can make the case that most traditional Republicans aren't part of that. Donald Trump is setting a stage that could end up giving Democrats a real a real opportunity both in the midterms and in the 2028 election. And so Republicans have a real challenge to be able to try to recapture people and say, we we are not the Donald Trump people. What Donald Trump did in terms of foreign policy and domestic policy created a real problem, but you need to trust traditional Republicans to bring us back from that problem.

Michele McAloon 32:39

Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time to my audience. Really go look at this, our Republican legacy online. It's it's a good white website, it's an informative website, and sign up. If you're a moderate Republican out there, and I imagine there most of my listeners are, if you're a moderate Republican, sign up. And who, you know, it it can't hurt at this point. So let's see if we can save our party, save our nation. All right, gentlemen, thank you very, very much. Thank you.

unknown 33:11

Thank you.