How Republicans can regain their credibility after Trump

President Trump lost the 2020 election. The Democrats captured control of the United States and maintained control of the House. Despite all that, the GOP isn't in terrible shape. Republicans gained 17 seats in the House, and the Senate is a 50-50 split with Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking any ties.

Trump did increase his overall vote total and surprised many by capturing a higher percentage of minority voters than in 2016. It's evident that some people ignored the tweets, norms-smashing, and overall pernicious behavior to vote for him over Joe Biden. It's a loss, but it does present some opportunities for the Republican Party in the post-Trump era.

However, Republicans must win back many of the voters they lost since 2016, such as those who chose to stay home or those who swung Democratic — particularly in the suburbs of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, three states Trump won in 2016. To do that, it's going to take more than the positives they took from the Trump presidency. They must reverse the negatives.

First, Republicans have to get off the conspiracy train. For over four years, Trump took the GOP down that rabbit hole, and many of them had compunction about following him down. People will tune out if someone blames every mistake or loss on outside forces that have malevolent motives. Trump's election-rigging and fraud claims go back to the GOP primaries, when he said Senator Ted Cruz only won the Iowa Caucus due to fraud. He even claimed his popular vote loss to Hillary Clinton in 2016 came about as a result of fraud.

When Trump took office, he blamed failures on Congress as well as the "deep state." The deep state conspiracy claims that the administrative state, made up of career employees at various federal agencies, has attempted to thwart the president's agenda since he got into the Oval Office. The deep state theory begat the nuttier conspiracy of QAnon. What is it? In simplest terms, it is the umbrella term for a set of internet conspiracy theories that allege the world is run by a ring of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who have actively plotted against Trump to get him removed from office.

Then came the November 3rd election. All elections have voting irregularities, scattered fraud, and court decisions that should rest with state legislatures. Those issues are worth addressing, but Trump took it DEFCON 1, claiming he won by a landslide, and saying Biden only won due to massive fraud, vote manipulation by Dominion Voting Systems, and Republican state officials in cahoots with Democrats. Trump pushed the conspiracies plenty in Georgia, and the Republicans lost two winnable seats as people failed to turn out, believing their vote wouldn't count.

Republicans have to get back to reality-based politics and stop pretending everyone is out to get them.

Another way for Republicans to regroup is to go for the incremental win when they can get it. The all-or-nothing approach to politics is counterproductive, and voters do want Congress to get work done. Yes, Republicans should oppose aspects of Biden's legislative agenda. That's the role of an opposition party. But the Democrats do have a majority, and it's better to limit what they want and get some legislative wins for the 2022 elections than to create an environment where Democrats steamroll their way to legislative victories, leaving Republicans with nothing.

Republicans have to prove they can govern, and that means ignoring the yelling and gnashing of teeth coming from a vocal minority of pundits, TV and talk radio hosts, and Trump-friendly websites. Give and take in politics is not "losing," as some suggest.

The Republican Party must start small. They can't sweep the last four years under the rug and think everything goes back to normal when Trump leaves office. Republicans will have to prove they can lead and not rely on yelling about "socialism" to get them back in the voters' graces who helped make them the minority party.

Jay Caruso is managing editor at the Washington Examiner