Frank Luntz Struggles to Say What GOP Stands For Under Trump: ‘There is No Consistent Philosophy’
The morning after the Republican National Committee announced that the party convention this year will have no platform — aside from “enthusiastically supporting” President Donald Trump — a renowned chronicler of the GOP’s evolution published a lengthy piece examining how we got here.
In Tim Alberta’s well-timed Politico piece — “The Grand Old Meltdown” — he turns to famed Republican pollster Frank Luntz for an explanation of what the Party stands for in the era of Trump devotion, lib owning and mainstream media bashing.
“I decided to call Frank Luntz,” Alberta writes, after he struggled to answer that question without invoking the culture wars cliché. “Perhaps no person alive has spent more time polling Republican voters and counseling Republican politicians than Luntz, the 58-year-old focus group guru. His research on policy and messaging has informed a generation of GOP lawmakers. His ability to translate between D.C. and the provinces—connecting the concerns of everyday people to their representatives in power—has been unsurpassed. If anyone had an answer, it would be Luntz.”
But Luntz — a frequent and voluble presence on cable news — does not have much of an answer. From Politico:
“You know I don’t have a history of dodging questions. But I don’t know how to answer that. There is no consistent philosophy,” Luntz responded. “You can’t say it’s about making America great again at a time of Covid and economic distress and social unrest. It’s just not credible.”
Luntz thought for a moment. “I think it’s about promoting—” he stopped suddenly. “But I can’t, I don’t—” he took a pause. “That’s the best I can do.”
When I pressed, Luntz sounded as exasperated as the student whose question I was relaying. “Look, I’m the one guy who’s going to give you a straight answer. I don’t give a shit—I had a stroke in January, so there’s nothing anyone can do to me to make my life suck,” he said. “I’ve tried to give you an answer and I can’t do it. You can ask it any different way. But I don’t know the answer. For the first time in my life, I don’t know the answer.”
Alberta lands on a more acute answer: “It can now safely be said, as his first term in the White House draws toward closure, that Donald Trump’s party is the very definition of a cult of personality. It stands for no special ideal. It possesses no organizing principle. It represents no detailed vision for governing.”
“If it agitates the base, if it lights up a Fox News chyron, if it serves to alienate sturdy real Americans from delicate coastal elites, then it’s got a place in the Grand Old Party,” he writes.
Brendan Buck, a former top aide to Paul Ryan (R-WI), seems to agree. “Owning the libs and pissing off the media,” he tells Politico. “That’s what we believe in now. There’s really not much more to it.”
