The Republican debate has an unplanned theme: This isn’t Ronald Reagan’s party anymore

This surely wasn’t the plan, but by placing their second candidate debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Republican officials put a spotlight on how far their party has moved from positions that made the 40th president a conservative icon. Reagan’s “undying faith that in this nation under God, the future will be ours” has little in common with Trump’s grim warnings of a “nation in decline.” But the shift reflects a change in national mood, especially among the white voters who make up the vast majority of the GOP. In the current field of major candidates — the seven onstage Wednesday night and Trump, the consistent front-runner in polls who has so far declined to join 2024 debates — the clearest divide is between those who embrace that shift away from Reagan’s outlook and those who resist it. Last month in the first GOP debate, some of the most heated divisions involved Ukraine, with Ramaswamy asserting that U.S. help for Kyiv was “driving Russia further into China’s hands,” and Haley turning on him and saying, “You have no foreign-policy experience, and it shows.” GOP traditionalists also differ from Trump on government spending, which may be most important when it comes to the two huge programs for retirees, Social Security and Medicare, which together account for about one-third of what Washington spends.