#Trump saved the GOP and other commentary

Even if Donald Trump winds up a one-term president, Eddie Scarry argues at the Washington Examiner, “the Republican Party is better off today than before he launched his first campaign in 2015.” He ended “the days of undying loyalty to the Chamber of Commerce and the sex-obsessed right.” Now the GOP prizes “any and every American who wants nothing more than low taxes and a country led by people who don’t hate them.” As for “cult of personality” charges, “it’s only because Republicans for so long never had a personality. Mitt Romney? Mitch McConnell?” In fact, “there are several Republicans well suited to pick up where Trump will leave off,” such as Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Gov. Ron DeSantis (Fla.). “They seem to have learned from Trump. The rest of the party should do the same.”

From the left: Warning Signs for Dems

“The conservative tilt” of the 2020 electorate, “particularly amid such high turnout, bodes ill for Democrats,” warns Slate’s William Saletan. Conservatives outnumbered liberals by 9 points in 2016 exit polls; this year, “the margin is 13 points.” And President Trump saw impressive gains among various groups, the “biggest” of which — “about a dozen points” — was among Christians: He got 71 percent of Protestants and 62 percent of Catholics. Democrats must learn from their “trouble attracting self-identified Christians” and recognize “they can’t count on the votes of people of color.” They “need better turnout on the left” and “to consolidate a majority of independent voters. If they don’t fix these problems, they could be looking at difficult maps for a long time to come.”

From the right: Down-Ballot Free-Market Wins

At National Review, Ryan Young tallies up “free-market victories” in ballot-measure results: Californians voted down a bid to expand rent control and passed a measure to rein in the state’s insane anti-freelancer law, which “overshot its mark” and put thousands of independent contractors out of work, “including journalists, translators, office workers, actors, musicians and production crews.” “Illinois voters said no to giving their legislature the ability to raise taxes more easily.” And “Washington State voters came out against a plastic bag tax.”

Religion beat: A Vatican Deal With Commie Devil

Joseph Cardinal Zen, the retired archbishop of Hong Kong, predicts that the Vatican’s just-renewed agreement with the Beijing regime spells doom for the Catholic Church in China — and, sighs Nina Shea at First Things, “it’s hard to disagree with this dire pronouncement.” The Communist Party gets the lion’s share of the benefits, with “Pope Francis [lifting] excommunication for all seven” of the bishops appointed and promoted by Beijing, even though it continues to withhold recognition from 30 bishops from the underground church. The underground bishops, meanwhile, “have recently endured detention, isolation, brainwashing and abuse.” The sad bottom line: “Given that the CCP is now energetically working to consolidate totalitarian control over civil society, this partnership comes at a very high price — for the Chinese Catholic Church and for the Vatican’s moral authority.”

Conservative: Voters’ Positive Messages

On Tuesday, “the American people spoke,” cheers Ben Shapiro at RealClearPolitics — sending “a variety of messages,” most of them “quite positive”: They rejected pollsters’ “overconfident modeling.” They stuck to their guns, whether in red, blue or purple states, despite the elites’ “mewling” about Trump. They bucked the left’s “quest” to “paint Americans into racial categories and then declare demographics destiny”: Edison exit polling showed Trump gained “2 points with white women; 4 points with black men and 4 points with black women; 3 points with Latino men and 3 points with Latino women.” In California, they “refused to greenlight the racist Proposition 16,” which would’ve paved the way for reparations and affirmative action. It’s all “excellent news.” Americans spoke as “individuals, not as members of contrived interest groups. And that is certainly worth celebrating.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board