Two-thirds of Republican voters say they want former President Donald Trump to run for president in 2024, according to a new Morning Consult/Politico poll. The poll also found that 82 percent of Republicans view Trump favorably. While not polled, Florida State Representative and Congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini is part of that 82 percent.
“I like his policies that he ran on,” Sabatini said.
Sabatini is running for Congress in 2022, hoping to occupy the seat currently held by Rep. Val Demings (D-FL).
“The principles and the issues that got Donald Trump elected are the ones we still need to pass,” Sabatini said. “Unfortunately, we haven’t really passed many of them. Obviously, the first and biggest issue is immigration, stopping illegal immigration, completely and totally and building the wall, but also passing a bunch of other policies that would fix the normal immigration system, which doesn’t work for the Americans, doesn’t work for the working class, and middle classes of our country.”
Sabatini believes Trump was on the right path during his presidency.
“Draining the swamp, which for me, is, is the equivalent of shutting down federal agencies, increasing our oversight and just reducing the amount of government and the permanent bureaucracy, what I call permanent, permanent DC, out of DC and that those things still need to happen.”
He believes time is of the essence when it comes to these issues and others.
“The principles and issues of 2016 still need to be implemented, and it needs to happen now before we lose the country,” Sabatini said.
Sabatini acknowledges the split in the Republican Party but believes the more traditional Republicans are endangering the party.
“I just didn’t think that the Republicans, [the] majority of Republicans elected, were true to the principles of the party like they should be,” he said. “So, that’s what prompted me to get involved and maybe want to run.”
“I think one of the reasons why the federal government is so dysfunctional, is because the Republicans, when they do get power… rarely ever really offer a different set of ideas,” Sabatini explained. “They’re just like Democrat lite and so nothing really ever changes in DC because they’re always growing government and spending and they’re not doing what I think they should be doing.”
But Sabati doesn’t believe a new ‘center-right’ party is something Republicans are considering.
“There’s no talk about a third party,” Sabatini said. “It’s clear what we have to do. We have to just take over the Republican Party. The Republican Party needs to be the party of the middle class and the working class people of the country. The American labor needs to be, you know, about America first, stopping the bleeding, stopping the policies that we have now, which have done almost nothing for the working class and middle class over the last 40 years.”
“If we can do that, the Republican Party will win again,” Sabatini added. “But what we need to do is focus on winning primary elections.”
Sabatini would be one of the younger members of Congress at 33, But he believes he can work with the older members of his party.
“There’s definitely generational characteristics,” he explained. “As a very strong conservative, hard conservative, you know, I think that I actually agree with a lot of some of the other generations more on some things like you know, Gen X or whatever.”
Sabatini believes he ‘old guard’ needs to change its thought process on some topics.
“My generation, we understand the threat of the left, [the] threat of what the Democrat Party is talking about. A lot more significantly in a much more significant sense than maybe other generations of Republicans did, because we grew up with it,” Sabatini said. “You know, people were just now talking about critical race theory. You know, I lived critical race theory, University of Florida for college and law school, twice. I mean, I watched those insane racist ideas be thrown around the classroom ‘Cultural Marxism’.”
“I think I represent someone who’s willing to fight harder because I know the stakes are higher. And I care about fundamental issues that if we lose on, we’ll lose the country,” Sabatini added. “If you take your normal Reaganite in the issues they cared about in the 1980’s, it’s the severity in which we care about the issues [that] are much more serious, but also the issues are much more existential than I think they were then.”
While not everybody may agree with Sabatini’s view for the future, many do agree a change needs to happen. Polling from YouGov found that just 28 percent of people polled say they think the country is on the right track. 60 percent say America is off on the wrong track.
While not polled in the YouGov poll, former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh is one of those people. Unlike Sabatini, Walsh believes traditional Republicans should distance themselves from Trump, saying Trump has damaged the GOP beyond repair. To see Walsh’s full interview with Straight Arrow News, click here.
