Take Donald Trump out of the picture for a moment. No names. No political inferences. Just a simple, blank slate without fear or favor. How would most people respond to the concept that no one is above the law? Can you imagine anyone disagreeing with that? Most anyone of any political stripe would say the rule of law is paramount to the maintenance of a democratic society.
But when we throw in a name and political affiliation, all bets are off.
Republicans have found themselves in a familiar role: defending Donald Trump after being accused of illegality or wrongdoing. They did so by attacking the district attorney who filed an indictment against him.
Meanwhile, Democrats have spent the last several days defending the concept of law and order and the processes of a legal system available to every citizen, doing so without attacking Donald Trump or passing judgment.
The uniformity is remarkable. Sometimes I think a person stands behind a counter giving out talking points: Folks, since you’re of this party, here’s what you will say ― and you folks in the other party, you’ll be saying the opposite. Republicans, perhaps because they have always been better at messaging, always stick to the same script. Meanwhile, Democrats, at least in this particular case, are uniform in the more objective sense: no names, no political inferences. Just a fundamental principle upon which anyone of any political stripe would agree.
Sometimes I wish we had a parallel universe where whatever is happening here, the opposite is happening there, and then see how everyone reacts. I’d like to think, and largely believe, that if a Democrat were under indictment, Republicans wouldn’t be talking about the rule of law: They’d be out for blood, while Democrats would continue to be more statement-like, maintaining that the legal process has to play out. Maybe we’ll get to test that theory if and when Republicans do their “Let’s Go Brandon” theatrics. (What is it with people who brand bumper stickers and banners saying, “Let’s go Brandon”? Do they really think liberals care? You just look like an idiot.)
Within days of Trump predicting his arrest, the outrage kicked into high gear, Trump leading the charge with his same old grievance tweets. GOP lawmakers cranked out predictable tropes. Angry supporters, his Storm Trumpers, swamped the Manhattan District Attorney’s office with hundreds of calls parroting Trump’s rhetoric, spewing racial slurs and multiple death threats. Conservative media outlets bellowed terms like “constitutional crisis,” compared it to Stalinist Russia or to what third-world countries do. Tucker Carlson, the preeminent liar on a network of liars, suggested that viewers keep their AR-15s ready.
It is as if the rule of law is no longer an abiding principle but an annoying impediment.
Essentially, the party of law and order found itself defending a person who has repeatedly been accused, legally or otherwise, of breaking the law, and often prodding people to break it. The party of traditional values and moral integrity again found itself defending a person who has repeatedly violated those ethical traditions.
We’ve seen this movie before. We’ll see it again with the three more investigations waiting in the wings.
· Election interference in Georgia
· Inciting a crowd to riot on Jan. 6
None of this had to happen, but Republicans are the reason why it has. Are some Republicans complicit in attempting to subvert our constitutional republic and help Trump stay in power? Yes.
Did the vast majority of Republicans continue to support Trump after Jan. 6, proving politics is more important than the Constitution? Yes, which makes them an accessory after the fact.
Has the Republican party ever rebuked Trump? No. Exactly the opposite.
Republicans wouldn’t even impeach Trump for the Capitol assault despite him being the reason those same lawmakers scrambled for their lives to get to a secure location.
Goodness, when HSNO (House Speaker in Name Only) Kevin McCarthy said the indictment “irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our presidential election,” I wanted to ask, “Dude, did you forget about Jan. 6?”
The GOP problem is entirely the fault of Republicans who thought they could use the Storm Trumper horde for their own purposes and then discovered they couldn’t control it. They could have stopped supporting Trump at any time but were so desperate to hang onto his base that they continued to endure his increasingly decrepit self-serving insanity.
Frankly, I don’t think there is a Republican party anymore. It is certainly not the party of Lincoln, the party of Eisenhower, or even Ronald Reagan. It has been consumed by a group who, even in the House and some in the Senate, don’t know the first thing about governing, the rule of law, or common decency. Is this why the party has failed to win the popular vote in all but one presidential election since 1988?
Who are these people? At what point does it occur that you are backing the wrong horse? At what point do Republicans get the message? I suspect Republican lawmakers knew that message long ago but put job security at a premium for fear the base voters would dispatch them to the ranks of the unemployed. For them, it was a Faustian bargain, a deal with the devil.
For Republican voters, however — real Republicans and not the base voters putting fear into the hearts of GOP lawmakers — there is a more seminal question: What does the Republican Party stand for, and does it represent you?
Pondering that may be uncomfortable and disconcerting for many conservatives as it requires comparisons with what the party represented when those conservatives first began voting Republican.
While on vacation a few years ago, I met a couple from Tennessee. Registered Republicans. Delightful people. Politics isn’t exactly vacation conversation, but over dinner one evening, when they learned I was a talk radio host, the conversation turned somber. The couple expressed frustration, even pain, over what had happened to their party. Friends had gone down the MAGA rabbit hole. Candidates surfaced whom they could no longer support. The values they cherished were no longer being championed. They knew their party wasn’t perfect — what party is? — but this was something different, something ugly, and they were deeply disappointed in the party’s transformation.
Had anyone predicted 20 years ago, let alone 40, that we would see such a seismic shift today on so many things central to Republican values, you’d have been banished to one of those prepper bunkers with a book on Mayan calendar prophecies. And yet, that’s the party we have today: A national party dedicated to stoking rage and grievance in lieu of governing. Never mind calling for accountability, justice, and applying the rule of law to Trump. That just gets you a ticket out of town on the Liz Cheney express.
The Republican Party is now the party of criminality and duplicity. The issue isn’t a weaponization of the legal system. It’s that they don’t like it when it’s pointed at them. Then again, there is that T-shirt saying what you can do with your feelings. Right back at the whole lot of you.
Nor is salvation for the Republican voter likely in the alternative. There is no essential difference between the GOP and the Trumpist mob. DeSantis and the other wannabees are carbon copies. Their suits just fit better. They may want to replace Trump at the head of the table, but they all plan to do it riding a wave of rage and grievance. It is all they’ve got.
Is that all Republican voters want now? I don’t believe it. It would be wrong to claim that most Republicans are bigots, though probably accurate to say that if you are a bigot, you probably call yourself a Republican. Hate to break it to you, pal, but you’re not a Republican, you’re just a bigot whose identity is defined through the hideous prism of Donald Trump.
I’m not sure what’s worse: the bigoted Storm Trumpers dressed in MAGA regalia and Trump pool floaties shouting incessantly from some street corner; or the agonizing howls of Republicans in Name Only who enthusiastically support a creature whose only talent is using grievance and victimhood to stoke racial and ethnic resentments, or attacking “the other,” or the Republicans who tolerate all these ignoble indignities in silence, in fear, without dissent, which is to say, they give consent.
If that’s the case, if you are a conservative who can relate to that couple from Tennessee or a Democrat who can empathize with them, do you no longer recognize what the Republican Party now stands for? And if so, why has there been no effort to form a third political party that actually represents you?
Some, particularly conservatives, may find my rhetoric a little too strong, and even offensive. But surely, you can’t believe people like Trump and the MAGA contingent represent who you are as a human being, can they? Or do they?
Confusion must end here.
CORRECTION: A prior version of this article wrongly stated that Republicans hadn’t won the popular vote since 1988. George W. Bush won the popular vote in 2004.
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