Two-Party Failure, Part III: The GOP Is Dead

Ronald Reagan’s party is dead. It didn’t die quietly or with dignity. It was gutted, embalmed in white grievance politics, and is now worn like a sick cosplay by Christian nationalists and conspiracy-pilled authoritarians. What we’re seeing today isn’t a continuation of the Republican Party; it’s a hostile takeover.

The Theocratic Turn

Evangelical theocracy is no longer lurking on the fringes. It’s writing the platform. Abortion bans without exceptions, forced birth laws, teachers legally mandated to out LGBTQ+ students, religious texts pushed into public education—all signal a party trading constitutionalism for crusades.

GOP politicians now openly quote scripture to justify policy. When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says he’s “protecting children,” he means indoctrinating them. When Republicans talk about “religious liberty,” they mean theirs. Not yours.

The First Amendment doesn’t stand a chance against their desire to turn public office into pulpit.

Alt-Right, Now in Office

“Great replacement theory”, once the domain of white supremacist forums, is now cable news fodder and part of mainstream Republican rhetoric. Elected officials openly dabble in QAnon conspiracies. Some attended or supported the January 6th insurrection. The GOP didn’t get infiltrated by the far-right; it invited them in, made them feel at home, and handed them committee chairs. What used to be coded dog whistles are now shouted from CPAC stages.

The Rise of Hate

Proud Boys? “Very fine people.” Nazis? “Don’t judge too quickly.” Militias? “Second Amendment activists.” Republicans have spent the past decade laundering the reputation of hate groups and giving them legitimacy under the banner of “free speech” and “anti-wokeness.”

They don’t dog whistle anymore. They campaign on a platform of hate.

Meanwhile, law-abiding moderates either bite their tongues or bow out, leaving the stage to the loudest, cruelest voices in the room.

This Is Not Conservatism

Let’s be clear: what the GOP stands for today is not conservatism. It’s revanchism, cultural panic, theocracy, and outright authoritarianism.

This isn’t about taxes, or states’ rights, or even immigration. It’s about maintaining control in a country that’s growing more diverse, more inclusive, and more connected. The GOP’s response isn’t to evolve. It’s to suppress, gerrymander, legislate, and terrorize its way back into dominance.

There Is a Way Out—But It’s Not Backward

If you’re a principled conservative, fiscally responsible, personally moral, and supportive of individual rights, you’re politically homeless. But you don’t have to be.

Instead of waiting for the GOP to reform (it won’t), the path forward lies in structural reform:

• Ranked-choice voting, as used in Ireland and Australia, allows voters to express genuine preferences without fear of “spoiling” an election.

• Proportional representation, standard in much of Europe, ensures that political power reflects actual votes, not the gerrymandered geography of fear.

• Open primaries and multi-party support make it possible for new voices—center-right, centrist, libertarian, pragmatic—to exist outside the MAGA shadow.

Europe doesn’t fear political plurality. It embraces it. America can too.

Conclusion: The Monster in the Mirror

The GOP isn’t going back to Reagan. It’s not even going back to Bush. What exists now is a toxic blend of fundamentalism, white identity politics, and authoritarian obsession with control.

And it’s not going away unless we build something better.

It’s time for conservatives of conscience to admit the truth: your party has been hijacked. You can either go down with it or help build something that makes it obsolete.

The future doesn’t belong to the extremists. But it won’t arrive on its own