You should be more true to the tradition of MA Republicans, who have been some of the best throughout history.
The question is, do Ben Sasse and other rising stars in the GOP bench for 2020 decide to get with the changing attitudes of the base, or do they keep delaying the inevitable and keep losing elections?
No, we're not moving towards becoming a culture war party. The culture war is over. The culture warriors lost. We're moving towards Pat Buchanan's economic nationalism and America First foreign policy values.
The GOP platform, which this year is the most socially conservative ever, is the last stand. Delegates like Rachel Hoff tried to change this, but her amendments were rejected as Perkins and his ilk tried for the last chance to hold onto the party.
This toxic combination of neoconservatism, social conservatism, and outdated economics has lost the popular vote in three of the last four presidential elections, and when it did get a popular mandate in 2004, it was by the skin of it's teeth. Cruz is nothing more than a post Obama age version of the Bush era GOP.
What the GOP needs is a Nixon like figure who can rebuild the party into a broader coalition that appeals to more than upper-middle class white voters. We need someone who can appeal to working class, blue collar whites with an economic agenda that protects their jobs. We need someone who can reach out, particularly to African Americans, to show that not only does the party of Lincoln believe that their votes matter, but that their lives literally do matter. We need someone who can take this party backwards to our former Republican values while also taking us forward into a century where archaic morals and approaches to most social issues (aside from abortion, which will always be a major issue) to appeal to new generation of voters who don't give a damn about Ronald Reagan's America, because Ronald Reagan's America is as dead as Reagan himself.
My ideal vision of the GOP in the 2030s is something akin to a combination of the Libertarian Party and UKIP. Rand Paul, should he talk more about jobs, trade, immigration, and less about NSA phone spying (which is of course an important issue, just not one to base an entire campaign on), would be a natural fit for this new party. People like Susan Collins, etc, would have room within the party as they already check most boxes but constantly find themselves at odds with the base on trivial issues like transgender bathroom rights. We can become a bigger tent all while purging the filth that has been holding us back for the last decade at the same time.
