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In world history, exiles, expatriates and their movements have played important roles in fighting unjust regimes.

To get a sense of the inspiration they can provide, think of Charles de Gaulle and Free France, the government in exile that was established in London after France fell during World War II.

There are, of course, profound differences between the task faced by de Gaulle in 1940 and the problem of reconquering the Republican Party today.
But they share this position:

🌟Psychologically, an exile movement must recognize that it does not have a place in the system and must work from outside it.🌟

👉That is a conceptual bridge that many anti-MAGA Republicans have been unready to cross.

Non-MAGA Republicans believed that the party would feel stung by MAGA’s record of regularly losing elections that Republicans ought to have won

Non-MAGA Republicans expected that the multiple indictments of Mr. Trump would discredit him in the eyes of G.O.P. primary voters or at least lead them to abandon him as a likely loser.

🌟Those suppositions turned out to be wrong, and Ms. Haley’s loss to Mr. Trump in the Republican primaries has extinguished all of them.🌟
Mr. Trump will be crowned in July.
He commands cultlike loyalty among his MAGA base.
He has taken over the machinery of the Republican Party.
His election to the White House in November would further consolidate his control of the party, but even if he is defeated, MAGA will not believe it lost fairly and therefore will not willingly relinquish its grip.

Which brings us back to the non-MAGA faction. With its paths blocked inside the party, it can still bring formidable people, resources and ideas to the task of defeating MAGA from the outside, as an exiled party.
What would this mean in practice?
💥A G.O.P. in exile 💥
— the Free Republicans, as it were
— can be a loose network of organizations, think tanks, politicians, consultants, donors and activists;
it can have a more formal structure, with its own national committee, state chairs and staff.

It might hold conventions, develop chapters and auxiliaries and approve a platform, or it might rely on a more decentralized strategy that supports and coordinates assorted efforts to build a bench of anti-MAGA talent and ideas.
Regardless of how those tactical choices are made, four strategic principles should define the project.

👉First, 🔸the Free G.O.P. should fully accept its exile status. 🔸No daydreaming about being welcomed back into the MAGA party any time soon. The project must look beyond the next month, the next year and the next election. It cannot be impatient or easily discouraged.

👉Second, even as the Free G.O.P. accepts its outsider status
— even as it acknowledges MAGA’s control of the Republican Party
— 🔸it should identify unwaveringly as the true Republican Party and reject the moral legitimacy of the Trump regime. 🔸The Free G.O.P. would insist that it, not MAGA, lays claim to the heritage of the party of Lincoln.

👉Third, the Free G.O.P. should 🔸develop an agenda
— or, more realistically, a set of agendas
— for a post-MAGA future. 🔸
According to The Hill, Mr. Pence’s political advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom, “plans to invest $20 million this year to shape the conservative agenda, an effort to directly counter what Pence had previously described as populism ‘unmoored to conservative principles.’”
The former vice president is putting his name on the line to oppose the Trumpian populism that controls the Republican Party.
He and his partners have the right idea:
Free Republicans must develop ideas and conversations about what 21st-century conservatism should look like.
Looking backward to a pre-Trump G.O.P. won’t succeed.

👉Fourth and most essential, 🔸Free Republicans must set their sights on overthrowing MAGA, 🔸not influencing it, partnering with it, bargaining with it, coexisting with it or waiting it out.
🔥They must name and explain what Trumpism represents:
lawlessness, moral anarchy, conspiratorial thinking and an assault on the Constitution.
🔥They must challenge MAGA Republicans in primaries, focusing in particular on state races for governor, attorneys general, state legislators and others.
🔥They must be prepared to withstand the hostile machinations of the MAGA Republican Party and the attacks of the Trump movement, which will be relentless.
If they do not consistently oppose MAGA, they will be dragged under it.
A party in exile would establish a gathering point for emerging leaders and fresh thinkers.
It would be a clearinghouse for resources and strategies with which to assail the MAGA establishment.
It would train candidates, build political networks, gather donors and supporters and show the public a brighter future.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/08/opinion/maga-republican-party-exile.html