In the wake of Republican losses in Tuesday’s elections, National Review senior editor Charles C. W. Cooke told Rich Lowry on The Editors that the GOP has a choice to make.

“At the moment, the Republicans have two problems,” Cooke said Friday. “One is abortion — I think the degree to which abortion is a problem is overstated, but it is a problem — and the other is Donald Trump.”

Cooke argued that one of these problems can and should be fixed. “You cannot, if you believe that abortion is killing, you cannot give it up in the name of democratic expediency,” Cooke said. “You can jettison — and should jettison — Donald Trump, who is supposed to be a vessel. Not just Donald Trump, any politician. Politicians are servants. . . . The idea that we would take one in the teeth to serve the politician out of some sort of loyalty is feudalism. . . . And I think the Republicans are going to have to understand that if they do want to win going forward, they’re gonna have to get rid of one of those downsides.”

“In most other areas,” Cooke said, “they’re actually doing very well. If you look at polling, it’s remarkable the extent to which Republicans have an advantage on all of the most salient issues of our time.”

“I think that Republicans can sustain one of these albatrosses. I don’t think that they can sustain both.”

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