The Harris County Republican Party is undergoing what sports teams refer to as “a rebuilding year” — give or take a few years. After defeats in the 2016 and 2018 elections, party officials are optimistic that voters’ flirtation with Democrats is a passing fancy and they will eventually return to the fold.

“We are still a strong force here,” Paul Simpson, Harris County GOP chairman, told the Chronicle recently.

Those don’t have to be the sentiments of a bandleader striking up the last tune on the Titanic. They’re true for the time being, and they can remain so — if party leaders resurrect a little common sense in their political strategy.

Regardless of your political persuasion, domination by either political party is not ideal in a democratic republic. When good ideas go unchallenged, they become stale.When bad ideas go unchallenged, they become policy. So, it is in that spirit that I offer some friendly advice to our local GOP, because, frankly, they have their work cut out for them.

So far, the party seems to be taking the same approach to identifying their political challenges as the men in — appropriately enough — the parable of the elephant. Versions differ, but basically a group of men in the dark approach a creature none of them know and proceed to describe it based on what little they can discern.

One can imagine GOP officials groping around: “This feels like the disenfranchised electorate,” one says. “This has to be the Hispanic invasion,” another exclaims. “This is definitely the fake news media,” the last one chimes in.

All interesting ideas, but they’re still missing the elephant in the room.

In 2012, after Barack Obama was re-elected, national Republicans famously commissioned a postmortem to find out what happened. The report — the product of thousands of surveys and more than 2,000 interviews with experts, voters and other stakeholders — told them then what they still need to do now: engage new voters.

Not by just registering them, but by offering policy proposals that resonated with a younger generation. Especially on immigration, the GOP needed to change, to offer reform and stop scapegoating immigrants whenever the need arose. While bashing immigrants is a strategy that worked with an older core base, it would continue to alienate a changing America.

How well did the GOP execute those recommendations? In the words of Rick Perry, a guy we now view as an immigrant-loving visionary: “Oops.”

Instead of doing the hard work, a grassroots rebuilding of the Republican party into a more inclusive brand, the GOP took the easy way and doubled down — on anti-immigrant rhetoric in the guise of national security, on voter suppression under the pretext of election integrity, and on tax cuts for the wealthiest cloaked in populism.

It’s hard to blame Harris County voters for the 20 point difference between those who in 2019 consider themselves Republicans and those who call themselves Democrats. Nationally, white college-educated women, independents and married voters have also tipped toward the Democrats.

Some believe this is a temporary change, that once President Donald Trump leaves office, things will get back to normal. But even if he is gone, the party that enabled him will remain. How are they ever to be trusted to stand up for conservative values if they so willingly sold them out?

Make no mistake, conservatism does not equal being anti-immigrant, nor does it mean a lack of empathy for those in need. But right now, that’s what many people see when they look at the Republican Party. They’ve stopped appealing to the compassionate conservatism of George W. Bush — and, well, Jesus — and have joined the politics of nihilism of Donald J. Trump.

This is costing the GOP voters. Hell, it’s costing them lawmakers, as more and more Texas Republicans head toward the exits because they know what’s coming. The president, after all, is not a person you want in your corner when you’re down. He’s a “win big or destroy a 165-year-old party” kind of guy. He hates losers.

The future for the GOP as a whole is not bright, but this offers an opportunity for local Republicans.

The country is looking more and more like Harris County. We are diverse, welcoming and we are thriving because of it. We are a rejection of the president’s fear mongering on immigration and apparent disdain for minorities. If the local GOP can propose ideas that benefit all residents and sway county voters — on health care, on the environment, on the economy — they can turn the tide.

At that point, if Republicans around the country want to avoid the dustbin, the Harris County GOP can lead the way. Otherwise, we won’t be talking about a rebuilding year, but a rebuilding generation.