The Trump banner is becoming more tattered every day.
Donald Trump keeps telling his supporters to vote for him in 2024 and they “don’t have to vote again.” Some Republicans are growing increasingly worried this is true—but not in the bye-bye-democracy way that Trump seems to intend.
They’re worried that if Trump is defeated in 2024, he will leave behind a broken Republican Party that will have no path to power for generations. Or that even if Trump wins, he could drag his twisted cult of personality into a condition from which it can’t recover.
From the daily appearance of Republican speakers at the Democratic National Convention to a list of over 200 former Republican staffers and former Trump supporters, many Republicans are lining up behind the effort to defeat Trump. They’re not doing it just to help save American democracy, either. Many are doing it because they desperately want Trump to go away so that their party has a chance of surviving.
History may not repeat itself, but sometimes the rhyme is strong.
Less than a month before the election in 2016, and in response to a leaked video of Trump making vulgar remarks about women, a long list of Republicans issued statements begging Donald Trump to drop out and let his running mate, Mike Pence, carry the banner of the party into the election. In Congress, state houses, and right-wing media, Republicans were scrambling to talk about Trump’s “fitness” and “character.”
At the time, Republicans could see the danger. Then-Rep. Jeff Fortenberry wrote that Trump had “abused women.” Rep. Ann Wagner withdrew her endorsement, saying that she condemned “the predatory and reprehensible comments of Donald Trump.”
But mostly, Republicans were talking about how they didn’t think he would win. Here’s then-Sen. Ben Sasse on Oct. 8, 2016:
When Trump refused to step aside and won the election, many of the people on that list did what other Republican critics of Trump have done ever since: became fawning sycophants of Trump. A great many of those who refused to kowtow to Trump were shoved out of the party, often by the mere threat of a primary against a Trump-endorsed candidate.
Now, after eight years of Trump doing to the GOP what authoritarian Project 2025 wants to do to the government—purge it of everyone who doesn’t place Trump above the Constitution—it's hard to imagine the Republican Party without Trump ... but many Republicans are starting to realize they have to move on or die.
A recent NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll shows Democratic nominee Kamala Harris opening a massive advantage with young voters. Harris’ 16-percentage-point edge over Trump with voters ages 18 to 29 is even larger than the advantage she now holds among women.
Republicans aren’t blind to this. This is the party that spent four decades carefully engineering a takeover of state legislatures and gaining control of downballot offices. What they see ahead is a wave of blue that could sweep a Trump-centered GOP out of power for decades.
None of this means that Trump is certain to lose in 2024. This remains a perilously close race, and despite the momentum behind Harris and the Democratic Party, nothing is guaranteed. History’s rhymes can be epically awful.
But the chorus of Republicans who see Trump taking their party down the drain even if he wins is growing louder. As Jonathan Martin writes at Politico, the best thing Republicans can hope for isn’t just that Trump gets defeated; it’s that he gets defeated badly.
For most Republicans who’ve not converted to the Church of MAGA, this scenario is barely even provocative. In fact, asking around with Republicans last week, the most fervent private debate I came across in the party was how best to accelerate Trump’s exit to the 19th Hole.One high-level Republican, conceding it may only be “wishful thinking,” even floated the idea of a Harris victory followed by Biden pardons of both his son, Hunter, and Trump. That would take the issue of both cases off Harris’ plate and, more to the point, drain the energy behind Trump’s persecution complex so that Republicans can get on with the business of winning elections.
That’s definitely wishful thinking. But many Republicans see that a Trump victory and the GOP’s hold on political power is likely incompatible—at least, under anything that looks like a democracy.
But then, if it comes down to a choice between Trump and democracy, there’s little doubt about which way most Republicans go. Just look back at the opening part of this rhyme, following 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment