On the opening night of the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas on Sept. 9, dubbed "Trumpapalooza" for good reason, I laughed as President Donald Trump mocked Texas Democratic state Rep. James Talarico for going vegan, then rediscovering his taste for Texas barbecue right as he launched his U.S. Senate campaign. In the same speech, Trump promised that if Republicans win in November, every adult citizen will receive a $5,000 “dividend,” a trillion-dollar giveaway that's disastrous policy and hardly conservative.

I can't think of two better examples of Trump’s fundamental contradiction, in the space of a single speech: humorous, vicious and dedicated to exposing the left's absurdities, yet also self-aggrandizing and willing to throw a trillion inflationary dollars at voters to win their loyalty.

Trump has dominated American politics for a decade, and while he's been the right man for this moment, the Republican Party can and must move beyond his version of "conservatism." The convention, and the midterms bearing down on us, suggest that moment is coming fast.

At the convention, the mainstream media fixated on Trump. But I saw something else: a glimmer of the future beyond him. And compared to the Democratic Party, particularly its democratic socialist wing, the future looks bright. The GOP's........

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