In a column for Policy Magazine, Robin Sears asks this question. He points to an article in The New Yorker:
A marvellous piece of analysis, by revered American political journalist, Nicholas Lemann, wrestles with the unpleasant options now facing the Republicans. In a lengthy New Yorker essay, he describes their choices as the “Remnant, Restoration and Reversal scenarios.”
The Remnant caucus would hang on only to the narrow Trump base, keep it stoked with anger and motivated to vote, through relentless attack. Then they’d take a page from the work the Heritage Foundation and its conservative think tank cousins did for Reagan, and draft a real socially conservative and economically nationalist program through the creation of new Trumpian think tanks.
The Restorationists would attempt to inject new life into the old Reagan-Bush policy agenda – internationalist, sensible on immigration reform, on economic growth, and with a focus on the importance of character in leadership. He cites figures such as Karl Rove and former UN ambassador Nicky Haley as members of this troop.
The Reversal gang, in Lemann’s lens, would essentially build out a stronger version of the demographic base that has emerged under Trump, while abandoning more affluent white shoe Republicans to the Democrats. As the party of the poor, the rural, the poorly educated and the angry white working class urban voters, they would cut the party’s ties to corporate America deliberately and be more genuinely populist, even economically interventionist, in their demands.
Sears concludes that none of the three Republican camps represent a realistic take on the post-pandemic world. He then goes on to speculate on what Biden's election means for the international order.
It's a piece that is well worth reading.
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