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MPR News Presents

Intelligence Squared debate: Has the GOP lost its way?

Sen. Jeff Flake
Former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., listens in 2018 to fellow Senate Judiciary Committee members.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

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From the Intelligence Squared series:

What should the Republican party look like after Donald Trump? For many prominent establishment figures, including those behind The Lincoln Project, the GOP has lost its way. The only way back, they say, is to purge the forces that brought Trump to power.

But others warn that rejecting the millions of voters who supported the former president is the wrong call for the American right. Rather, the GOP should instead double down, focus on bridging the establishment and grassroots factions of their party, and find a way to move forward together.

The debate motion is: The GOP has lost its way.

For the motion:

Jeff Flake
Former U.S. Senator, Arizona.

“As a lifelong conservative Republican, I was surprised to find myself so profoundly at odds with my own party and with the man who had used its ballot line to vault to power. But the values that made me a conservative and an American were indeed being undermined, the country was paying a steep price for it, and I would be a liar to my family, my state and my conscience if I were to pretend otherwise.” 

Carlos Curbelo

Former U.S. Representative, Florida.

Against the motion:

Ben Domenech

Publisher, The Federalist, and host, The Federalist Radio Hour.

Kimberley A. Strassel 

Author and member, Wall Street Journal editorial board.

 “The biggest political win of 2021 so far may go to Republicans, with their vote this week to keep Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney in her House leadership post. … The party sending a message that it remains a big tent and isn’t going to grant or revoke membership purely on fealty to one politician, Donald Trump. Just as important, it was the party stomping on the new Democratic and media strategy to cast the entire GOP as extremists and kooks.”