If The Republican Party Had A Soul, It Would Be Trump
Geoff Duncan, Georgia’s very conservative Republican Lt. Gov, stood on line for an hour to vote in the Senate runoff— and then he just couldn’t mark the ballot for Herschel Walker. He told CNN he was dismayed when he stared at the two alternatives but in the end he believes that Walker hasn’t shown he wouldn’t be “Trump’s puppet.” Being Trump’s puppet is exactly why— the only reason why— nearly half of Georgia’s electorate tends to vote for Walker.
Among elected Republicans in the House, the problem about the Trumpist bent of the party is more complicated. Many don’t want the face of their party being Marjorie Traitor Greene’s Gang-Greene. But some are just fine with that, the more and more dominant Freedom Caucus, for example. That manifests itself in many ways, some more subtle than others. Yesterday, the Republican House Conference voted on earmarks. The Freedom Caucus wants to ban them again but after a raucous debate 158 Republicans voted to keep them and just 52 voted to get rid of them. McCarthy’s allies were the ones pushing to keep earmarks. But one of the Trump neo-Nazis, Scott Perry, House Freedom Caucus Chair, was one of the leaders of the anti-earmarks debate. And he called it a “a “pretty important marker” for the fascist wing of the party to weigh when decided whether or not to allow McCarthy to become speaker (in the Jan. 3 floor vote, in which McCarthy needs 218 votes but probably doesn’t have more than 190 at this time).
Perry and some of his Freedom Caucus colleagues met with McCarthy on Tuesday behind closed doors to go over rules changes they are seeking, but so far McCarthy has only agreed to “minutiae,” Perry said.
After the earmarks vote, Perry expressed frustration with the outcome.
“That we don’t recognize that there is a problem with the earmark process in Washington, D.C. is a sad testimonial,” he said. “America knows that this process is broken here, that it is rife with their money, their hard-earned money being spent on things that have absolutely no reason to be in the federal purview.”
The earmark ban's defeat comes after the conference before Thanksgiving voted down other amendments Freedom Caucus members proposed, like allowing committees to pick their chairs instead of the Republican Steering Committee and requiring the Republican leader to prioritize passing the 12 appropriations bills as stand-alone measures.
McCarthy had said he’ll let the conference decide whether to reinstate the earmark ban, without trying to influence the outcome. But he needs 218 votes to become speaker, and fell 30 short of that threshold during the conference vote earlier this month.
…“Earmarks are one of the most corrupt, inequitable, and wasteful practices in the history of Congress,” several organizations including the Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform, FreedomWorks, National Taxpayers Union, Heritage Action, Citizens Against Government Waste and more wrote in a Tuesday letter to House GOP lawmakers. “Supporting Rep. McClintock’s amendment is your first opportunity to demonstrate to taxpayers that the election of a Republican majority in the House will be accompanied by a serious effort to restore and maintain fiscal responsibility.”
At this point McCarthy is banking on the proposition that there is no-one else but him— a notion his allies keep repeating over and over and over. Establishment Hate Talk Radio host Mark Levin, frustrated, called McCarthy's top detractors "5 boneheads" & accused them of "playing right into the hands of the Democrats." He called Matt Gaetz (FL) “utterly useless,” Andy Biggs (AZ) a “phony conservative” and Bob Good (VA) a “moron.” But is there really “no one” else besides the empty suit that everyone knows McCarthy is?
This morning, reporting for Semafor, Kadia Goba and Benji Sarlin wrote that “the basic point remains: Even if conservatives managed to force repeated votes, who can step in to get them over the hump?” McCarthy is trying to scare members that some moderate Republicans— there are just three or four left— could make a deal with the Democrats and elect… Liz Cheney. No one takes the argument seriously and it is much more likely that an ostensible McCarthy backer like far right extremist Gym Jordan [or even Confederate Steve Scalise] will “reluctantly allow” his name to be put into nomination when McCarthy can’t get to 218 after multiple embarrassing floor votes. Louie Gohmert, who’s leaving Congress in January, says the McCarthy allies have it backwards. “Rather than produce a moderate squish who can get along with Democrats, a standoff on the Speaker vote that went multiple rounds would simply force Republicans to find a more unifying ‘compromise candidate’ or McCarthy to make new concessions to the right.” Gohmert reassured that that “It’s not going to be a Democratic-elected speaker.”
Yesterday, Jonathan Chait proposed a more all-encompassing question for the body politic: who’s going to get the Nazis out of the Republican Party? His definition— basically Nick Fuentes— may be a bit too narrow, but it can easily be broadened to include other fascists and even fascist enablers throughout the party.
The way Chait views the problem is that “Trump has expanded the Republican coalition to the right, activating and encompassing undisguised white supremacists, who, through their entry into the two-party system, have gained newfound influence. This is a dangerous and historically significant change to the American political scene. And hardly anybody in the GOP— certainly not Ron DeSantis— intends to reverse it.”
Trump’s campaign in 2015 had an immediate galvanizing effect on white supremacists, a once-marginalized faction that saw recognizable themes in his rhetoric and came off the sidelines to work on his behalf. Trump’s response has always been to profess ignorance without condemning white supremacists or their ideas. This allows a David Duke to shrug off Trump’s claims of never having heard of him but still share in the glory of his success. (“We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.”)
Trump has woven white-supremacist themes into his rhetoric, sharing Groyper videos and hailing his Nazi-loving loyalists as J6 martyrs. Pro-Trump Republican members of Congress such as Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene— now a Republican power broker who is set to have her committee privileges restored by the new GOP majority— participated in a white-nationalist conference. The status of these ideas is revealed by the refusal of the party’s leadership to cast them out.
The Republican mainstream has shrugged off Trump as an idiosyncratic personality whose behavior indicates no deeper racist or authoritarian tendency within the party. They have accordingly presented DeSantis as the solution. “DeSantis would be a Republican nominee without Donald Trump’s worst and most destructive impulses and habits,” Jim Geraghty argues.
But far from restoring the party’s pre-Trump identity, DeSantis would reify its Trump-era transformation. One way he would do this would be to carry forward Trump’s goal of turning the state into an Orbanist weapon to entrench Republican rule. But the other is to preserve the new coalition Trump created.
DeSantis is quite deliberate about this. He has reached out to QAnon supporters and insurrectionists and suggested January 6 was a setup by the FBI. He has denounced Liz Cheney for participating in the January 6 hearings but refused to denounce a gang of Nazis who showed up in Orlando and menaced local Jews. This is a clear signal of whom DeSantis sees as inside the coalition (white supremacists) and who is out (pro-democracy Republicans like Cheney.)
DeSantis’s supporters have greeted the idea that he would issue a pro forma statement denouncing white supremacists with mockery. Tablet’s Noam Blum suggested DeSantis is too busy governing for his spokesperson to issue a statement. “Contrary to how he is characterized in the national media,” sniffed National Review’s Dan McLaughlin, “Ron DeSantis’ personal approval is not required for the list of guests Floridians may invite to dinner.”
These people are not idiots. They understand perfectly well that DeSantis weighs in on national political and culture fights routinely. He is not too busy to attack the white-nationalist right. He wants to maintain its support but quietly.
Writing for The Bulwark early this morning, A.B. Stoddard reminded his readers that Trump will burn down the Republican Party— even including himself— rather than allow anyone to take away his control of it. It’s a psychological prerequisite for him. It’s who he’s always been. “What’s odd,” scoffed Stoddard, “is that Republicans are behaving as if Trump will take the hint, react appropriately to the roast they have coordinated, and go away. Team Normal even seems to think they can create a virtual smoke-filled room and convince the other potential 2024 contenders to keep the field small so Trump can’t win the nomination with a plurality of the vote like he did in 2016.”
Trump could acre less what Bill Barr, Paul Ryan, Chris Sununu, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton or Mike Pence— let alone Mitch McConnell— have to say. He’s got the MAGA voters; they don’t. “These Republicans attempting to isolate Trump,” wrote Stoddard, “don’t seem to understand that their own voters nominated hundreds of election deniers just a few months ago. And they do not seem to have an actual plan for how to turn these voters against Trump. They seem to think that Mitch McConnell can simply give a command and then Republican voters will do what they’re told. Besides, he continued, “Trump is running to remain relevant and continue getting paid. His interests— both business and personal— are much more centered around dominating Republicans than returning to the White House. And if he can’t dominate the party, then it will be in his interests— again, both business and personal— to burn down the GOP so it cannot win without him, either.”
Republicans who think that their sternly worded warnings to Trump will be effective seem to have forgotten that this man purposefully endangered the life of his own vice president. So no, he will not be loyal to a political party, endorse the nominee, and encourage his voters to support the winner in 2024. Ronna Romney McDaniel, who has rigged the RNC for Trump (after he tried to steal an election) by paying his legal bills, buying Don Jr.’s books, and censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, has no secret plan to keep Trump on the team. Nor does anyone who could defeat her for RNC chair.
On January 20, 2021 when Trump told McDaniel he was leaving the GOP, he explained it would be punishment for Republicans who supported impeachment and refused to overturn the election, according to the account in Jonathan Karl’s Betrayal. “This is what Republicans deserve for not sticking up for me,” Trump told McDaniel. She managed to back Trump down by threatening to withhold payment of his bills and an email list he was using to raise millions. But Trump won’t back down now; he will not simply accept the promise of a potential future pardon from Ron DeSantis and go home quietly.
When attorney general Merrick Garland announced a special counsel to manage the Trump probes, the former president warned his party twice in a Fox News digital interview: “The Republican Party has to stand up and fight.”
Fight, or else.
As for the opposition to Trump for the nomination? Puny and unpersuasive, especially for two very different but key elements: first the MAGA base and then swing voters. “None of them are running against Trump’s lawlessness or tyrannical instincts and they aren’t likely to distinguish themselves from each other on policy,” wrote Stoddard. “What they think they can do is position themselves as polished Trumpists— savvier, more sophisticated culture warriors willing to dabble in illiberalism or authoritarian socialism, like using the state to attack the private sector. If the candidates nominated in 2020 and 2022 were more Trumpy, not less, the 2024 Republican contenders will likely run as Trump-lite, not as alternatives. If they do, then Trump has the best shot to win. And Republicans have another handicap in their attempt to unseat Trump: They have to worry that if Trump falls behind in the primary polls and another clear leader emerges, he will leave and trash everyone. He won’t wait to lose the nomination, since he cannot permit an actual defeat. He will eject himself in advance and campaign against the party. Chaos always wins. Trump can just grab Kari Lake or Marjorie Taylor Greene or whoever the MAGA Girl Wonder is that month and go nuts. He can pretend to start some candidacy somewhere, raise money, and sabotage the GOP nominee. And some portion of his voters will believe he has been cheated again, sold out by RINOs, and that voting Republican would be no different than voting for a woke socialist.”
Trump has prepared perfectly for this final conflagration, because his supporters know fraud follows him everywhere. When Ted Cruz won the Iowa caucuses it was rigged. When Hillary Clinton won the popular vote it was rigged. 2020—obviously rigged. And so the 2024 contest is his to be had—or it’s rigged, too.
Most importantly, this campaign is a shield for Trump. He trusts his supporters will believe that any criminal charges he faces will be fake witch-hunts. He expects to raise a lot of money off of the outrage, and he also expects these developments to flummox his Republican opponents and adversaries.
Because if there is a reckoning and Trump faces justice, are his Republican opponents going to defend the Biden Justice Department or Fani Willis, and tell Republican primary voters that the charges are credible and Trump’s conduct was criminal? Will they tell the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to chill out and stop threatening the lives of law enforcement and prosecutors and judges and their families?
How could they? These same people spent the last five years defending Trump from “witch hunts” and “fake news” and all the rest. They helped prime Republican voters to believe this stuff.
Trump understands that anyone who dares to get into the race with him will have to agree that yes, it’s all a political persecution and Trump is innocent and that the best way to own the libs is to vote for him again. He’s the best middle finger available. They will have to say this because if they don’t, then they will either lose the primary or lose some sizable percentage of Republican voters.
Trump rode to power by fighting the Republican establishment because he understood that it was weak. He realized that whatever Republican elites might say, they’ll always come to heel. Grab ’em by the insurrection. You can do whatever you want.
Does the Republican establishment seem more powerful today than it was in 2015? And if, for some reason, Republican elites do hold out this time and line up against him, is there any reason to think that Trump will not torch them all on the way out the door?
When Republican elites say they want to move on from Trump because he hurts their party’s electoral chances, they’re telegraphing their own vulnerability. They’re admitting that they care more about winning Republican seats than anything else. Donald Trump does not care if the GOP ever wins again. And this gives him leverage over them.
If Republicans don’t understand this already, they soon will.
Seem far-fetched to you? A bunch of whacked out Trumpists may be handing a close, but legitimately-won Arizona congressional seat to a Democrat because… MAGA. The lunatics in control of certifying the over 47,000 ballots in red Cochise County have no reason to say no, except that they’re insane. “That would flip the results of the race for Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District, where Republican Juan Ciscomani holds a 5,232-vote lead over Democrat Kirsten Engel in unofficial results, as well as the race for state Superintendent of Public Instruction, where the Republican candidate has a narrow lead.” I expect the supervisors to give in and allow Ciscomani to win the race. But Trump? I don’t think so.