Reach out to all Americans, not just your supporters. And sometimes zig when they expect you to zag. But Trump went backward, losing by 3 million votes in 2016 and then by 7 million in 2020. He could have cleaned up leftover messes from previous administrations, cutting a new path through the wilderness of Washington's bipartisan failures. Trump largely failed to do that. He did score some victories on criminal justice reform, gaining traction on the issue in a way that left his critics wondering whether the president's unorthodox style might be what the country needed to break the partisan impasse. But he turned out not to have the attention span for forging other policy wins, including in areas that would have endeared him to moderate suburbanites who were wary of him in 2016, weary of him by 2018, and worn out by him in 2020. Trump, who had billed himself as the ultimate deal maker, failed again and again to make deals that would have helped his reelection. At one point, he had congressional Democrats talked into $25 billion for his border wall in an agreement that would have also taken care of the nation's "Dreamer" population. But he just couldn't close the deal. Playing solely to his base lost Trump the election, alienating former Republicans in the suburbs who might have overlooked his character flaws had he given them more to chew on than uncouth behavior and conspiracy theories. The Georgia Senate runoffs showed again that the Republican Party under Trump has major problems among traditional center-right voters, even as it has picked up some support among other demographics. To win in the future, the party must find leaders who can (and will) appeal to both. Trump's failure to understand the possibilities of his own policy influence — and the political rewards to be reaped from it — sank his presidency. Perhaps he thought that by cutting deals to appeal to America's center he would lose his base. In retrospect, though, that was terrible judgment. They would have followed Trump anywhere, as we've seen in his disastrous quest to overturn the election results. Every conversation about his term — and his obituary — will begin and end with the insurrection he fomented against the U.S. Congress because of his unwillingness to accept the results of a free and fair election. Republicans cannot nominate Trump again in 2024, for both political and national security reasons.