The GOP as we knew it is dead. And what comes next is terrifying.

There is no going back from Trumpism

Trump supporters.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar)

Parties need agendas. But President Trump has so thoroughly trashed his party's brand of free market loyalty, fiscal responsibility, and traditional values that one cannot help but wonder: What will the Grand Old Party stand for after Trump departs from the White House?

Here's my prediction: The GOP of the post-Trump future will intensify the culture wars against the liberal "enemy," and throw into the mix a regressive economic agenda that consists of nativist immigrant bashing and mercantilist America First-ism. Essentially, even without Trump, the GOP will fuel itself with Trumpism.

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Shikha Dalmia

Shikha Dalmia is a visiting fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University studying the rise of populist authoritarianism.  She is a Bloomberg View contributor and a columnist at the Washington Examiner, and she also writes regularly for The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications. She considers herself to be a progressive libertarian and an agnostic with Buddhist longings and a Sufi soul.