If there was a silver lining to Donald Trump’s victory in the GOP primary, it was that part of his appeal lay in real moderation. Trump is racist and demagogic, but he’s also secular and focused on workers, not the Wall Street tycoons and religious right that have driven Republican policy for the past three decades. In that spirit, Trump dialed back on Republican nostrums like the opposition to abortion and gay marriage, and struck a cautious tone on military intervention. That he won the primary by opposing party orthodoxy essentially obliterated the assumption that ideological conservatives were a majority faction within the GOP.

In doing so, Trump alienated many who had counted themselves among the party faithful, the activists and insiders who waged the “culture wars” of the 1980s and ’90s. Back then, Republicans believed they were fighting a “war for the soul of America,” as Pat Buchanan called it in his 1992 convention speech—a struggle that pitted conservatives against the secular, progressive factions in American politics who advocated for abortion, gun control, affirmative action, and the separation of church and state. Most of the Republican nominees in the last two decades played up the culture wars, too—until Trump. His past support for abortion, history of philandering, and blatant lack of interest in going to church has turned off many party insiders.



Still, Trump’s rise should have been a reckoning for the political insiders and activists who were drafting the Republican platform in Cleveland last week. But there was no such soul-searching. They doubled-down on the culture wars while also adopting Trump’s most extreme positions. The platform that will be presented on Monday calls for erecting a wall along the Mexican border, the demand that the government “destroy ISIS.” But it also calls for blocking women from serving in combat roles in the military, abolishing federal funding for abortion, and rolling back the spread of pornography, which Republicans lament as a “public health crisis.”

The platform, in other words, is caught between two poles, both of which are toxic to much of the country. This was a missed opportunity for the Republicans. Had they adopted the softer social positions championed by Trump, and retained their traditional devotion to free trade, military intervention, and trickle-down economics, their party might have become more palatable to the broader public. Instead, Republican insiders drafting the platform redoubled their efforts to pull the party further to the right.

This might seem insignificant. After all, who cares about a Republican platform that will hold little sway over what Trump would do in the White House? But it’s actually a glaring indication of the party’s identity crisis—one that will make it even tougher for the next Republican nominee to broaden his (or her) appeal four years from now. In short, the platform is the perfect blueprint for not winning the White House.