The quiet battle now unfolding inside the Republican Party is less about personalities than about memory and trust. Bush-world believes that time dulls anger, that voters exhausted by drama will eventually crave the familiar cadence of old conservatism—low-key, disciplined, predictable. Their plan is not a dramatic comeback, but a patient re-entry: cultivating governors, think-tank darlings, and polished heirs who can promise competence without the Bush name ever needing to appear on a ballot.

Yet the grassroots has a longer memory than the strategists hope. Trump’s rise was not an accident; it was an indictment. Voters remember being told that globalization was inevitable, that endless war was necessary, that their towns had to hollow out for the sake of “progress.” Even when Trump is gone, the question will linger: can a party led from the top ever again claim to speak for those at the bottom?