Trumpification of the GOP
This is a kind of tab-clearing, but with a theme, and it also relates, at least in part, to James Joyner’s post earlier today about Trump’s mounting legal liabilities. Especially these three stories:
Like the party itself, McDaniel made changes and accommodations to aid and ally with Trump. Much has been written about her decision to drop her maiden name, Romney, at Trump’s behest. But the more consequential choice McDaniel made was to help move the party away from its establishment bearing — from which she herself came — into one that echoed Trump’s political fancies. She stood by him even after he threatened to form his own party, spread conspiracies about widespread fraud, lost the 2020 election and then attempted to overturn those results.
In the end, it wasn’t enough, and under pressure from Trump, McDaniel decided it was time to step aside. After a nearly two-hour meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, Trump posted that McDaniel was a “friend” but that he would be “making a decision the day after the South Carolina Primary” on “RNC growth.”
The pledge comes just days after the former president threw his support behind his daughter-in-law to serve as co-chair of the RNC. Donald Trump called her “an extremely talented communicator who is dedicated to all that MAGA stands for” while also endorsing North Carolina GOP Party Chair Michael Whatley to serve as RNC chair.
Lara Trump is married to Eric Trump and has been involved with the RNC and party donors since the her father-in-law’s time in the Oval Office. If she and Whatley are elected by RNC members, it would secure a full takeover of the committee by the former president.
Donald Trump said Sunday he also asked his senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita to essentially serve as the RNC’s chief operating officer to supervise the day-to-day operations of the committee ahead of the general election.
Several senior Republican officials are concerned that Donald Trump’s expected takeover of the RNC will ultimately pave the way for the committee to once again cover his legal bills.
Those fears come in the aftermath of Trump endorsing a trio of officials, including his daughter-in-law, to take on top roles at the RNC. While those endorsements have been well-received by many committee members — who note that it is customary for a presidential candidate to put his imprint on the party’s main campaign apparatus — others fear a potential misallocation of party resources.
[…]
The RNC spent nearly $2 million on two legal firms working on Trump cases in 2021 and 2022 before stopping once Trump jumped into the presidential campaign. The committee will continue to have a legal fund to pay for recount efforts, lawsuits and typical party legal business.
[…]
But, quietly, there has been some pushback from the committee’s more traditional conservative faction to Lara Trump’s potential role. A third member of the RNC, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump’s daughter-in-law being installed as co-chair “will make it easier” for Trump to receive approval from the RNC to cover his legal bills, should the campaign ultimately decide to do so. The member complimented Lara Trump as a “great woman,” but said Trump tapping her for the job “smacks of nepotism.”
You don’t say.
On the one hand, the notion that the party’s presidential candidate (especially the most recent president of the party) would have significant influence over the leadership of the RNC is not unusual. On the other, the blatant corruption here, including trying to place his daughter-in-law into a position of power alongside the obvious need to use RNC funds for his own legal bills is outrageous.
Meanwhile, other examples of Trump’s influence.
- Via WaPo: Lindsey Graham, a longtime foreign policy hawk, bows to Trump on Ukraine. Graham may well be one of the most remarkably craven politicians I can remember insofar as he has demonstrated not just the ability to radically change his mind but to be utterly and dramatically dedicated to whatever position he is holding at the moment.
- Via The Atlantic: Why Republican Politicians Do Whatever Trump Says. I will summarize and amplify the thesis of the piece, which is essentially that re-election is the main motivator for members of Congress (not policy or outcomes, as David Mayhew noted in his now classic book from 1974). My amplification is that the pathway to re-election is through the primaries, where factions like MAGA can have disproportionate influence. Once the primary is won, the odds are that the winner is a foregone conclusion).
Really, I think this is a central explanation of what we are seeing with contemporary GOP political behavior. A lot of politicians are simply making a re-election calculation. I would note that many of them are getting it wrong (see, e.g., Kevin McCarthy).
Sidenote, part of the issue is simply that there is a far-right, nationalist faction of American politics that is part of the GOP coalition. For example, Via TNR: GOP Congressman Spews Racist Screed on Fall of “Western Civilization”. Trump is the leader of the coalition and by capturing the nomination in 2016 he has catapulted himself into the position he currently finds himself. It gives him influence over the RNC, as noted above, and provides the kind of political influence generated by the faction that he leads having significant influence in the primaries.
Moreover, once he became the nominee in 2016, knocking him out of that position became very difficult because clearly there is not a faction of the GOP powerful enough to topple him. There is also the incentive to wait him out, which may be the coward’s way out, but if elected officials are primarily motivated by re-election (and I think they are) then it is not irrational behavior (whether it is morally defensible is a different discussion).
Obviously this is all excellent news for Democrats. We spend our money to elect Biden and Congress. They spend their money on Trump’s lawyers and fines. Senate and House Republicans will get fuck-all from the party.
The GOP will be just the latest failed Trump business. They’re already behind, most recent report has the RNC with 8 million, to the DNC’s 20 million. No matter what they raise it’s unlikely to cover Trump’s bills, and I’m not sure how much Trump’s MAGAts have left in their retirement accounts and kid’s college funds. They could be bankrupt before November.
ETTD.
Re why GOP pols do what Trump wants. In the Fani Willis hearing they questioned a highly respected lawyer, IIRC past Governor of GA, to establish he’d been approached to take the Trump case before Willis hired the current guy. Asked why he turned Willis down he said he’d lived with bodyguards before and didn’t want to have to again. Trump’s threats are vague, and seldom lead to violence, but they work nonetheless.
@gVOR10:
You’re absolutely right, and I don’t know why more people don’t see it. GOP pols are terrified of what might happen to themselves and their families if they cross Trump. Can you blame them? Trump has millions of followers, and a significant number of them are crazy and violent.
This is so curious to me. They can’t possibly need this particular gig that badly. Seems like they could make a whole lot of money doing other things, without the headache and violent threats, and with less of a ‘sell your soul’ factor. Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor seem to be living pretty well, after all, and they gave up actual power. What is wrong with these people who are wedded to being a backbencher?
Would love to get some of these folks on the couch. Congress must draw a very strange personality type.
I’m still a little perplexed as to why sensible conservatives can’t or won’t start building their own alternative party. Maybe they’re not losing enough under Trump.
There should be no surprise, as to why. R congress critters, at the top of their careers, committee and sub-committee chairs, are choosing not to run for reelection. Better to get out, than deal with the threats. After all, those same critters have spent the last 20 ensuring that these same constituents are heavily armed.
There has been a lot of analysis by pundits about the mysterious Svengali hold that Trump has over the base but as Steven notes, it isn’t that at all.
There is a terrifyingly large number of Americans for whom Trump is merely telling them what they already want to hear in clear unvarnished ways, without the coy drapery of platitudes favored by previous GOP candidates.
He could vanish tomorrow and the base will simply anoint another. They are leading, not following. It sometimes seems as though they are sheep, the way they suddenly veer from hating police to wanting to murder the Capitol police, but really it isn’t that either.
They don’t, and never did, care about this issue or that issue as abstract principles.
They want, and have always wanted, an ethno-nationalist authoritarian regime placing them at its pinnacle. Everything else was and is just minor details.
The Lardass view of loyalty illustrated.
@gVOR10:
Exactly right.
In case anyone wondered what a ‘Mob Presidency’ would be like …
Trump is in that mode, except that Trump operates the way Joe Pesci’s character ‘Tommy DeVito’ in ‘Goodfellas’ operated – a hothead, brutal, impulsive, made most situations worse.
In the same vein, Joe Pesci’s character ‘Nicky Santoro’ in ‘Casino’ was similar to ‘Tommy DeVito’ – brutal, impulsive, poor judgment, a liability to be removed from the balance sheet.
Problem is, Trump heads up his mob operation. He’s not the barely tolerable flunkies ‘Nicky’ or ‘Tommy’ both of whom can be taken off the balance sheet by higher-ups or ambitious underlings.
Realistically it’s not likely that Eric and Don Jr. are going to rein daddy in.
@DK:
A central part of a more complicated answer is our electoral system: to run as a third “Real Conservative Party” means splitting the GOP vote in a given district and likely handing victory to the Dems.
That’s not a complete answer, but it is a major part of a complete answer.
Another major part is that in the short term building a new party means losing a lot and incurring costs. Building a new party is a medium-to-long-term proposition. Politicians are notoriously short-sighted.
Your question is, in a microcosm, why I keep talking about structural factors and the incentives they create given what politicians tend to want.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Sorry to disagree Dr Taylor, but I remain convinced that a major part of the problem is that somewhere between 25 and 50% of the voting population prefers the American Bund to a tasty bundt cake.
As always, YMMV, but in my opinion, the current system is a reinforcement of this longing for a Daddy figure.
Remember the size of the pro German parades in the days leading up to world war 2
I often complain, rightfully so I believe, that it’s a cult of personality and that the GOP has few principles it would hold onto if Trump didnt support them. I think tax cuts for the wealthy might be one but then Trump would of course support that. However, on an individual level I really thought that Graham would be a Colld Warrior until he died. That he would support Ukraine and oppose Putin. However, I have been proven wrong and now Graham supports Putin because Trump does. I actually feel kind of stupid for that belief.
Steve
@steve:
He’s always been a weak little beta, following along like a remora behind John McCain, then shifting to Trump when McCain died. He’s an invertebrate. Also, likely gay in a very deep closet. Trump could destroy him with a single sentence at a rally.
@Steven L. Taylor: Yes, I understand that mainstream conservatives leaving the Republican Party en masses would (possibly) result in their short-term pain, hence why I’m just “a little” perplexed by the reluctance, not totally bewildered.
But I’ve always thought of right as pretty good at playing the long game. And it seems a true center-right party would setup conservatives for some pretty significant longterm wins. It’s not like their current party is killing it ekectorally.
Maybe they feel the short-term pain would incur too much pain, perhaps irreversable pain. Or, maybe the complaints about the current system aren’t persuasive enough, and folks feel things right now are good enough, or as good as it gets.
If powerbrokers and the rank-and-file can only be persuaded to upend the current structure if the process is painless and lossless, where does that leave would-be reformers? Pleading to empty rooms?
@DK: I’m more cynical than you are, I think. I’ve come to the conclusion that conservatives have always been what they appear to be now and were just better at disguising it in the past.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
This!
Trump has given permission to the majority of the party to say the quiet parts out loud. The dog whistles are now air-horns. Many no longer care to pretend they’re not racist, homophobic, or sexist. They just don’t care who knows of their xenophobia and antisemitism. It was always there for a majority of the party. They just hid it better before Trump.
@DK: Easy. Being a congress critter confers a status not afforded to simple wealthy businessmen. It’s why wealthy businessmen run. You may not be the richest, but most of the time they are the most powerful person in the room. Including a room full of rich people. There are only 548 people that get to decide what happens in the USA. Everyone else is just an advocate. That’s a powerful motivator, especially for a congressional backbencher who would otherwise be a nameless, moderately wealthy shmuck.
@EddieInCA: It’s Archie Bunker come back to life.
I rewatched some old reruns of the first couple of episodes of All in the Family a couple of months ago and it’s horrible how relevant the show still is.
@DK: “Maybe they feel the short-term pain would incur too much pain, perhaps irreversable pain. Or, maybe the complaints about the current system aren’t persuasive enough, and folks feel things right now are good enough, or as good as it gets.”
A process which might take twenty years would result in most of these people losong their jobs in the hopes that their children would see the results.
@Flat Earth Luddite: Which is what I referring to in the OP when I noted that
That certainly fits in your 25%-50% range. And a large percentage of those folks vote in primaries.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
To be somewhat fair, that often includes disguising it from themselves. I think a lot of traditional conservatives are completely unaware of what their “principled convictions” are actually based on. You can only discover it by dialectic, as each alleged principle is abandoned in turn when following it is shown to lead to obviously absurd prescriptions.
I’ve recently been re-reading some G. K. Chesterton, and I have pretty much decided that he was the most eloquent exponent of conservative principles yet who was not consciously disguising a hidden agenda of protecting wealth and power. Sometimes he sounds entirely sane and convincing; the rest of the time he sounds ridiculously racist and chauvinist. He makes some great points (e.g., Chesterton’s Fence) and yet cannot seem to see people not of his clan as individuals.
@DrDaveT:
I’d agree. I’ll disagree about “you can only discover it by dialectic” because my experience is that large numbers of my students didn’t do dialectic particularly well. But the main thing that allows us toe disguise things/ideas from ourselves is that we’re unwilling to challenge our preconceptions and examine all of the unspoken premises that make up the web of our worldview.
I look forward to the “impeachment” of Mayorkas in the Senate.
Those incompetents didn’t list evidence of charges in the paperwork.
Republicans are used to being able to Game The Refs to get positive coverage for everything, even stuff they didn’t do. They won’t know how to react to having every independent [correctly] think they’re the party that can’t govern.