It would be tough. Going moderate like many advocate on here wouldn’t work as any gain from Kasich supporting crowd will be offset by those further right who just give up on voting outright. Options going forward would be:
1. Republicans will either become junior party that occasionally puts check on left moving too fast, but never controlling all branches of government (like New England politics currently). Win 1 out 5 presidential elections at most and stay legislative minority.
2. The winning strategy is full populist (Fiscal left/social conservative). Fiscal conservatives are dying breed in electorate until the federal government or a large state government goes BK.
The GOP would abandon fiscal conservatism in its official platform (already have in practice) and run to the left of Democrats on economic policy/safety net (adopt more generous version Yang’s UBI, medicare for all citizens, higher tariffs, higher taxes on the rich, etc.) while maintaining social conservative views. This would win over both white and minority working classes at the expense of losing libertarians and upper middle class professionals who are already trending Democrat. GOP would also have to work closer and drop hostility towards organized labor. This would be winning ticket, but also equal the death of American conservatism.
I kind of agree that a more refined Trumpism could be a winning platform for the Republican Party. Even though I am 100% opposed to all of President Donald Trump's policies, they do resonate with white working-class voters, as well as with a small number of Hispanic working-class voters from more conservative Hispanic-majority countries such as Spain, as well as Hispanic-majority countries that were under either communist or socialist rule such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Also, a majority of people I know who were born after 1999 identify as Trump supporters, so the Republican Party should focus on gaining the support of individuals born from 1999 onward. Coupled with their lock on voters born between 1955 and 1985, the Republicans could at least be competitive in the popular vote by the time of the 2032 election.
I also think that the Republicans should heavily target Catholic voters (almost to the point of becoming a Catholic identity party so to speak), as Catholic voters have trended heavily towards the Republican Party under President Donald Trump (If I recall correctly, Melania Trump is a devout Catholic and Donald Trump is very sympathetic to the Orthodox Catholic position on most policy issues). Also, the Catholic Church seems to be the only Christian religious sect that is not declining too much in the US, so it would be advantageous for the Republicans to focus on Catholic voters.
