Peter Wehner

In a poisonous political culture, when moderation is precisely the treatment we need to cleanse America’s civic toxins, it invariably becomes synonymous with weakness, lack of conviction and timidity.

At the national level, the GOP is likely to become a populist and ethno-nationalist party, not a conservative one.

If the forces that propelled Donald Trump’s rise are not defeated, what happened this year will be replicated in one form or another, and the Republican Party will continue to inflict great harm on our republic.

Repairing our politics begins with understanding the nature of the enterprise. Alleviating the public’s bitter mistrust of politics requires coming to terms with its mundane realities and limits.

With the future of the Republican party and the conservative cause in mind, here are some questions that may help organize our thinking in the months ahead.

Narcissism — in this instance the inability to accept that he is likely to lose to a woman in the biggest contest in the world — was at the core of Mr. Trump’s answer about not being prepared to say he would abide by the outcome of the election.

The care of words is something that should concern all of us, perhaps particularly those of the Christian faith.

Lewis knew that a faith-informed conscience could advance justice and that Christianity played an enormous part in establishing the concept of natural rights and the dignity of the human person. But he also believed that no political party can come close to approximating God’s ideal.

Americans want to believe everyone has a fair chance to succeed.

The Trump oeuvre – what he has said, and done, and shown over the course of his life and this campaign — leads to an unfortunate but inescapable conclusion: Donald J. Trump is manifestly unfit to be president of the United States.

Orwell’s commitment to seek truth fiercely and bravely, while acknowledging that it is only one man’s truth, is a balance very few of us achieve.

With his partisan, reckless comments, the Evangelical celebrity dishonors his Christian faith.