Taking a Cue From Trump, House Republicans Offer Narrow Agenda

Though they called for ambitious new testing and vaccine deployment, it was far from the kind of forward-looking conservative vision that leading Republicans once insisted they needed to offer voters, and that past party leaders have rolled out every two years almost like clockwork. There was no mention of spending restraint or cutting entitlement programs, nor the party’s yearslong quest to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The omissions were a bow to political reality at a time when Republicans are toiling to avoid losing an even larger share of the suburban voters who have flocked to Democrats in recent years, a trend that appears likely to continue in November. Mr. Trump has reminded Republicans just how powerful a political force a strong economy can be, and has demonstrated that adherence to what were once considered core party principles is no longer required. And undoubtedly, the gargantuan task of pulling the country out from a once-in-a-generation catastrophe will preoccupy whomever voters put in charge of the government come January.

But the thin agenda also underscored how thoroughly congressional Republicans have transformed themselves in the age of Mr. Trump even from the recent days when, under Speaker Paul D. Ryan, they prided themselves on being the intellectual engine of their party.

Four years into his presidency, the party has followed his lead and shied away from stances on the nation’s biggest, most intractable problems, like how to fix a broken health care system or address the ballooning national debt, that were once considered Republican orthodoxy. The party of free trade has mostly embraced Mr. Trump’s protectionist stance. The party of fiscal responsibility has overseen a record-setting explosion of the national debt. The party of free enterprise has stood by, mostly without criticism, as Mr. Trump has meddled in markets and individual businesses.

What has been left behind are an ideological hodgepodge of narrower policies and cultural wedge issues, a commitment to tax cuts at nearly any cost and, above all else, the vilification of Democrats.