It looks more and more likely that Hillary Clinton will be our next President. She is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee and unlikely to be indicted for mishandling classified information. If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, she will trounce him because his negatives are much worse than hers. If Mr. Trump is denied the Republican nomination, he is likely to run as an independent candidate and take votes away from the Republican nominee, thereby also electing Mrs. Clinton.
What happens then? The Republicans will regroup by broadening their base to better appeal to Mr. Trump’s constituency of disaffected white working class voters. Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs, has visualized what policies a reconstituted conservative party might want to embrace to replace the no longer affordable progressive model:
- Healthcare: a new approach would liberate insurers and providers to offer many different models of coverage and care and empower consumers to choose between them.
- K-12 Education: a new approach would allow parents to make choices for their children and reshape the educational system around their preferences.
- Welfare: a new system would empower local problem solvers to mix resources, advice, experience and moral leadership in a process of bottom-up experimentation.
- Higher Education: a new model would no longer reinforce a cycle of rising tuition and declining value with inflationary federal loans. Rather it would open up accreditation to allow for more options and offer aid to the needy which rewards high value rather than high prices.
- Cultural Issues: moral traditionalists should emphasize building cohesive and attractive subcultures, offering alternatives to the chaos of the mainstream permissive society.
- Diminished Opportunity for the Working Class: Improvements to Trade Adjustment Assistance and Job Retraining programs (wage insurance?) will have to be embraced.
Conclusion. The disruption caused by Donald Trump could lead to a new and more broadly based Republican Party better equipped to address the emerging problems of the 21st century.
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It Does Not Add Up 
Jack,
You are so much more optimistic than I am. I am not sure what the “new” models that the Conservatives would offer. I really do not think that free enterprise is a good model for education, or health care. When it comes to making things I am strongly in favor of capitalism. By the way I find few advantages in free enterprise when it comes to recreating things into energy for humans as well.
Perhaps we can explore these ideas this Friday evening.
Doug
American healthcare is simply too expensive and costs are still growing rapidly. Granted that a single payer model (like Medicare) could be used to control costs, such a system would also limit our freedom and provide us lower quality care.
In education there are simply too many failing public school systems, especially in large cities (not including Omaha!). For the sake of all the low-income, minority children who live in these big cities, other, private, options are needed to give them the education they need to succeed in modern society.
What is omaha doing others arent ?
But who will pay in the poverty stricken communities for education? And why are costs exceeding far beyond other first world countries? Why should health care providers enjoy such high income?
Ultimately in my mind, we have to demand more noblesse oblige from the wealthy.
Doug
Omaha has a Learning Community in which all 11 metro area school districts participate and work together to narrow the achievement gap between the low-income and middle class kids. The LC is quite new but it’s off t0o a good start.
Public education is simply not getting the job done nearly well enough in the big inner cities. Way too many poor kids are not getting the K-12 education they need to succeed in today’s economy. Soon sort of change is needed and government may not be able to deliver it.
I agree that healthcare providers are overpaid. It’s because their monopoly control of medicine is too great. We need more private competition, meaning consumers must have a higher stake in the cost of their own healthcare.