Peter Thiel Urges GOP to Move Beyond ‘Nihilist Negation,’ Adopt ‘Positive Agenda’ for America
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PayPal Founder Peter Thiel, who has sponsored multiple rising Republican stars, said Sunday that the GOP needs to prove it offers a “positive agenda” for the country, not just the “nihilistic negation” of progressive policies.
“The temptation on our side is always going to be that all we have to do is say we’re not California,” Thiel said during a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Miami. He noted that many of the problems plaguing his home state, such as homelessness, crime, and drug abuse are easy to condemn but difficult to solve.
“It’s so easy, so ridiculous to denounce, but … should we maybe have more of a positive agenda?,” he asked.
A defensive Republican Party that can’t persuade voters to buy into a positive agenda will have longterm electoral difficulties, he argued. While the GOP is expected to sweep the midterm elections, its current platform of anti-wokeness is insufficient, Thiel said.
“My scoring on the [2022] cycle is that we’re doing even less well than ‘94 with the Contract for America,” Thiel added. “We’re doing less well than 2010, the tea party stuff … we’re leaning way too far into pure nihilistic negation.”
The exception to Thiel’s assessment was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose management of his state has presented an alluring alternative to Governor Gavin Newsom’s California that has already drawn many thousands of transplants.
“DeSantis in Florida is probably the best of the governors in terms of offering a real alternative to California,” he said.
DeSantis has turned the Sunshine State into a haven of freedom, safety, and prosperity even amid a two-year pandemic, Thiel suggested. However, rather than take a laissez faire approach to governing, DeSantis has put his foot down on significant cultural questions, earning plaudits from populist figures like Thiel and the candidates he’s financially supported, such as Blake Masters and J.D. Vance.
For example, DeSantis recently signed both a pro-life law and the Parental Rights in Education law, which prohibits sexual and gender identity instruction in K-3 classrooms.
Other Republican governors have borrowed from DeSantis’ model, especially on transgenderism, passing legislation to ban males from participating in women’s sports and to restrict gender transition surgery and therapeutics for children.
