Conservatives are not used to winning. Decades of cultural marginalization and political frustration have conditioned the American Right to define itself by resistance. But now, after a sweeping political victory, many on the Right seem unsure what victory is for. This is a lesson the Left once failed to learn, and it’s one the Right risks forgetting in turn. What happens when your side actually wins? And what happens when you don’t know how to stop fighting?
We’ve seen this before in American politics. When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, becoming the first African American to do so, he declared, “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our Founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” That message broadly spoke to the American people. For many, Obama’s election felt like the closing of a long and painful chapter in our country’s history. It seemed to confirm that the nation had finally overcome its original sin.
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Josh Appel is a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute.
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