E

xactly two years ago, I rented a car and drove down to Virginia Beach, Virginia, to listen to then-candidate Donald Trump address a group of veterans. The drive took about four hours, and I wondered at the time if I wasn’t going a bit far to attend a speech of a candidate who had little chance of winning.

In fact, at the time, Republicans had hatched a plot to boot Trump from the ballot at the GOP Convention. But in Virginia, as I soon found out, Republican voters had other ideas, and were supporting him enthusiastically.

So too today. While certain elements within the party still oppose Trump, the base by and large backs him. Primaries that took place last week provided yet the latest evidence that the anti-Trump pendulum has swung to the other side.

Rep. Mark Sanford’s loss in South Carolina is the best example. In that race, Sanford, a five-time congressman and sharp Trump critic, lost to Kate Arrington, a political novice who had never run for office and who was outspent eight to one. At the same time, Republican voters in Virginia chose Corey Stewart, a Trump loyalist, to take on Sen. Tim Kaine (Hillary Clinton’s former running mate) in that state’s upcoming senatorial election. Stewart, who describes himself as “more Trump than Trump” has embraced Confederate-era war heroes and aligned himself with “pro-white” activists.

A week earlier, another Trump critic, Rep. Martha Roby of Alabama, was forced into a runoff election after she failed to win a majority in a June primary. To those, we can add better-known names, like Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, both Trump critics, who announced some months back that they wouldn’t be running again for office after it became clear they stood little chance of winning.

Recent polling bears out what Flake and Corker know. According to the latest Economist/YouGov poll, more than two-thirds of Republican voters want Trump to run for reelection. Moreover, Democratic pollster John Zogby reported last week that, at this point in his presidency, only George W. Bush was more popular among the Republican base than Donald Trump.

Trump is even scoring points with risky moves in foreign policy. A Monmouth University poll released last Thursday found that 70% of Americans — 93% of Republicans and 49% of Democrats — believe Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was a good idea. The same poll gives Trump a 43% approval rating, his best numbers since last September.

Trump is truly fashioning the Republican Party in his image. Though his views on trade and foreign policy are often a far cry from the traditional Republican doctrine, there’s no denying that the party is behind him — and those who aren’t are moving aside.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 715)