The 2024 election will not change the direction of the country, but it represents a crucial battle for our nation.

Trump will not destroy and replace the current corrupt regime. It may be impossible for anyone to do this with the current configuration of our government and of the Republican Party. Even if it were theoretically possible, Trump’s history shows he will largely operate within the system, even if he will violate some of its norms.

Trump is unlikely to significantly cut the administrative state. No president has reduced the size of government since Coolidge, and the rules of the administrative state make it even more difficult to cut without extraordinary effort. Further, cuts do not seem to be Trump’s priority.

Meanwhile, technological changes that will define our age will originate outside our political and governmental institutions. Many of these will come from alternative networks and institutions that develop outside incumbent elite institutions altogether. In such a scenario, many legacy institutions will stagnate and even collapse; the alternatives that shape the subsequent era will be institutions that are independent and able to survive a coming collapse. In particular, the digital domain will rise in importance—not just commercially and culturally but also as a de facto layer of government. Companies and networks that can “claim space” in this domain will have outsized impact.

While this dynamic shows where we should—and should not—expect systemic change to originate, it does not diminish the importance of the 2024 election. Rather, it highlights what should be the focus of electoral politics.

First, these outside and ultimately disruptive institutions can only develop if they are not suppressed in their infancy by a hostile government. Thus, the first and most important job of a Republican government is to protect such projects—and the broad constituency on the right whose way of life is threatened by the Democrats and the broader leftist regime. Trump may check or limit the regime’s ability to censor and suppress its enemies. And he will stem the tide of illegals streaming over the border, which is one of the greatest threats to our country.

Second, beyond direct suppression, the current regime bleeds productive citizens to transfer enormous amounts of money to its political clients. That creates headwinds for any disfavored enterprise. Any Republican government would limit the worst of these abuses, and Trump may take even stronger measures, especially if he gets congressional support.

Finally, even if the federal government at best stagnates, red states could become vibrant hubs of a distinct economic and cultural system, which will cultivate the new networks and institutions that ultimately disrupt the establishment system. They likewise need protection from federal abuse and they need a cadre of rising political elites who can pursue this vision at the state government level. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s 2018 election showed that state-level races can have great importance.

Focusing on protecting the future of the American right rather than achieving federal policy goals is not a departure from politics, but rather a return to the essence of politics. Politics, at its most basic, is about protecting against those who would destroy our way of life. The last decade has made clear how seriously the left and the institutions they dominate threaten our way of life. As the lawless prosecutions of Trump underscore, we are approaching a state of nature in which legal and constitutional principles recede and only power can stop our opponents. Trump and Vance, and rising numbers of red state politicians, understand this in a way legacy Republicans never did.

We should not expect transformational change from the 2024 election. We can hope for an end to the border invasion and the political attacks on the right. We must check the vast government transfers to Democratic clients. And it is important to build our political strength in red states so they can remain bastions of the American way of life. We are in a risky political moment; we must elect protectors.