NY Times Categorizes Everything Wrong With Trump— Without Mentioning A Pusillanimous GOP

Still little more than a trained Trump seal at heart, Pence was on State of the Union yesterday giving the GOP party line: “I have never called what happened on January 6 an insurrection. I was there. It was a riot, the way it broke out, and I have never seen it any other way. And while I said that the president’s words were reckless— and I believe that history and the American people will hold him ultimately to account for his role in that day— I think these efforts to take the decision away from the American people are really antithetical to the very democracy that President Biden and many Democrats talk about wanting to defend… [R]emoving the former president or any other candidate from the choice of the American people, I don’t believe is in the interest of the country. And I have reason to be confident that the Supreme Court of the United States will see it just that way.” Too bad Tapper didn’t ask him what that reason is. Anyway, not a very Shermanesque statement, especially not in comparison to one by Meghan McCain also over the weekend: “I would rather saw my arm off with blunt glass than vote for Trump.”

Too bad none of the viable primary contenders took a more McCain-like stand. And now that it’s too late, DeSantis and Haley are starting to fight back… a little and ineffectively. They both did CNN town halls in Iowa on Thursday and each was relatively aggressive towards Trump. DeSantis went after Trump from the right, playing up to small town Iowans xenophobia by attacking Trump for not following through on his promise to end birthright citizenship. “All he had to do was put his John Hancock on a piece of paper, and he did not do it. When I tell you I’m going to do something, you can take it to the bank.” DeSantis also accused him of not being anti-Choice enough.

Haley stuck with her “Trump was the right president at the right time” bullshit adding that now “chaos follows him. And we can’t have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.” Few Republican voters believe that— which explains the latest (Wednesday) Iowa caucus poll:

• Trump: 52%

• DeSantis: 18%

• Haley: 16%

• Ramaswamy: 7%

• Christe: 3%

I returned from a couple of weeks in India on Saturday and the first thing I saw an editorial in the NY Times: This Election Year Is Unlike Any Other, warning Americans to “pause to consider what a second Trump term would mean for our country and the world and to weigh the serious responsibility this election places on their shoulders. By now, most American voters should have no illusions about who Trump is. During his many years as a real estate developer and a television personality, then as president and as a dominant figure in the Republican Party, Trump demonstrated a character and temperament that render him utterly unfit for high office. As president, he wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country. Now, as he campaigns again, his worst impulses remain as strong as ever— encouraging violence and lawlessness, exploiting fear and hate for political gain, undermining the rule of law and the Constitution, applauding dictators— and are escalating as he tries to regain power. He plots retribution, intent on eluding the institutional, legal and bureaucratic restraints that put limits on him in his first term.

Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small. He confronts America with a far more fateful choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution.

…Trump’s four years in the White House did lasting damage to the presidency and to the nation. He deepened existing divisions among Americans, leaving the country dangerously polarized; he so demeaned public discourse that many Americans have become inured to lies, insults and personal attacks at the highest levels of leadership. His contempt for the rule of law raised concerns about the long-term stability of American democracy, and his absence of a moral compass threatened to corrode the ideals of national service.

The Republic weathered Trump’s presidency for a variety of reasons: his lack of prepared agenda, the disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic and the efforts of appointees who tried to temper his most dangerous or unreasonable demands. Most important, it survived because of the people and institutions in his administration and in the Republican Party who proved strong enough to stand up to his efforts to undermine the peaceful transfer of power.

It is instructive in the aftermath of that administration to listen to the judgments of some of these officials on the president they served. John Kelly, a chief of staff to Trump, called him the “most flawed person I’ve ever met,” someone who could not understand why Americans admired those who sacrificed their lives in combat. Bill Barr, who served as attorney general, and Mark Esper, a former defense secretary, both said Trump repeatedly put his own interests over those of the country. Even the most loyal and conservative of them all, Vice President Mike Pence, who made the stand that helped provoke Trump and his followers to insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, saw through the man: “On that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution,” he said.

There will not be people like these in the White House should Trump be re-elected. The former president has no interest in being restrained, and he has surrounded himself with people who want to institutionalize the MAGA doctrine… Trump and his ideological allies have been planning for a second Trump term for many months already. Under the name Project 2025, one coalition of right-wing organizations has produced a thick handbook and recruited thousands of potential appointees in preparation for an all-out assault on the structures of American government and the democratic institutions that acted as checks on Trump’s power.

The project ties in with plans from Trump and his supporters to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers so they can be fired if they do not buy fully into the Trump agenda. He also plans to strip the Justice Department of its independence in order to use it to wreak vengeance on those who, in his view, failed to concoct a victory for him in the 2020 election or otherwise didn’t support his unconstitutional demands. There is more, including threats by Trump to find ways to use federal troops against those who might protest his policies and practices. These ambitions demonstrate that the years out of office and the mounting legal challenges he faces have only sharpened his worst instincts.

Trump was impeached twice as president and since leaving office has been charged in four criminal cases— two related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, one over hush money paid to a porn star and another for hoarding classified documents after he left office and impeding the government’s efforts to retrieve them. No other sitting or former president has ever been indicted on criminal charges. Not only has Trump shown no remorse for these actions, he has given no sign that he understands these indictments to be anything but a political crusade meant to undermine him. He continues to claim that the Jan. 6 insurrection has been misrepresented. “There was love and unity,” he said in an interview last August. And he has suggested that, if re-elected, he could use his presidential powers to pardon himself.

Trump’s forays into foreign affairs remain dangerously misguided and incoherent. During his presidency, he displayed consistent admiration for autocratic leaders— including Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un— and contempt for our democratic allies. While in the White House, he repeatedly threatened to leave NATO, an alliance critical to the stability of Europe that he sees only as a drain on American resources; now his campaign website says, without elaborating, that he plans to “finish” the process of “fundamentally re-evaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.”

He has announced his intention to abandon Ukraine, leaving it and its neighbors vulnerable to further Russian aggression. Encouraged by an American president, leaders who rule with an iron fist in Hungary, Israel, India and elsewhere would face far less moral or democratic pressure.

Trump has made clear his conviction that only “losers” accept legal, institutional or even constitutional constraints. He has promised vengeance against his political opponents, whom he has called “vermin” and threatened with execution. This is particularly disturbing at a time of heightened concern about political violence, with threats increasing against elected officials of both parties.

He has repeatedly demonstrated a deep disdain for the First Amendment and the basic principles of democracy, chief among them the right to freely express peaceful dissent from those in power without fear of retaliation, and he has made no secret of his readiness to expand the powers of the presidency, including the deployment of the military and the Justice Department, to have his way.

Democracy in the United States is stronger with a formidable conservative political movement to keep diversity of thought alive on important questions, such as the nation’s approaches to immigration, education, national security and fiscal responsibility. There should be room for real disagreement on any of these topics and many more— and there is a long tradition of it across the American experiment. But that is not what the former president is seeking.

Re-electing Trump would present serious dangers to our Republic and to the world. This is a time not to sit out but instead to re-engage. We appeal to Americans to set aside their political differences, grievances and party affiliations and to contemplate— as families, as parishes, as councils and clubs and as individuals— the real magnitude of the choice they will make in November.

Today, the GOP base is basically a Trump cult. Trump's rhetoric emphasizes a clear division between "us" (his supporters) and "them" (the media, political opponents, etc.). This creates a sense of in-group loyalty and solidarity and a strong "us against them" bond, especially because many Trump supporters have below average IQs and rely heavily on fact-free media outlets and social media groups for information, limiting their exposure to alternative viewpoints. Criticism of Trump is met with hostility and accusations of disloyalty from his supporters. This can discourage independent thinking and questioning of his actions, echoing typical cult dynamics. Republican Party leaders could have stopped this at any point along the way, especially right after January 6. But there was never the requisite will or courage. It’s too late now— even if they wanted to.