Republicans Keep Doubling-Down on Their Mistakes. It's Time to Cut Them Off.
We're really doing this. Again.
We’re really doing this again.
That’s the main takeaway from Donald Trump’s recent CNN townhall. Trump didn’t really break any news in that appearance. What he said—that the 2020 election was rigged, that 1/6 was a “beautiful day,” that he would pardon the insurrectionists, that he had a right to keep top secret documents in his home, that Republicans should default on the nation’s debt, that he didn’t know E. Jean Carroll even though a jury had just found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her—was hardly surprising. Nor was the caustic, hyperbolic, and deceitful rhetoric he used to make his case, demean his enemies, and degrade the public space.
Some reported that while it appeared to viewers the conservative studio audience ate up everything Trump said, the former president’s performance actually turned off many in attendance. Perhaps that’s a positive development. Maybe Trump’s act is finally beginning to wear thin among those who should constitute his partisan base.
But I doubt it. These conservative voters tend to treat their moral objections to Trump as mere stylistic objections (“I wish he’d tone down his Tweets”) in order to numb their consciences and justify their support for him. That comes in handy when they have to explain to others why they couldn’t bring themselves to reject an authoritarian and vote for a generic Democrat like Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden: It makes a vandal like Trump—who would burn down democracy to “save” it—seem like an ordinary politician if not for his gleefully unhinged, bully-like behavior. What they conveniently overlook is that such behavior is usually a pretty good sign such a person shouldn’t be allowed to serve as your kid’s recess teacher, let alone President of the United States. It doesn’t matter if these attendees couldn’t bring themselves to applaud the man in real time; a Republican who willingly sat through seventy minutes of the Trump shitshow is still a Republican willing to sit through four more years of a Trump presidency.
This is not to say there aren’t some Republicans who have abandoned Trump and the party he co-opted. Yet while that’s a significant development that shouldn’t be overlooked, the more remarkable thing to note is that Trump’s hold on the Republican Party remains strong despite everything he has done over the past eight years. Additionally, Republican voters are still backing him even though results from the past three elections suggest he is a drag on the ticket. Reports continue to show Trump is absolutely crushing Ron DeSantis in primary polls, and it’s hard to believe after all this time that some new lie, crime, ethical violation, racist or sexist statement, incitement to violence, or threat to the democratic foundations of this country could convince Trump’s supporters to turn on him. If Trump can count on Republicans turning out for him on Election Day, that gives him a decent chance to win back the White House.
But why won’t Republicans quit him? Why can’t more conservatives bring themselves to say what Trump is doing is indecent, unethical, unbecoming of the highest office in the land, and dangerous to American democracy? Why can’t they even bring themselves to say that despite the way Trump has reoriented the party when it comes to policy, the GOP still needs to move on to a less toxic, more widely-acceptable candidate?
There are a few reasons why Republicans continue to back Trump. First of all, there are a number of authoritarian types who embrace Trump’s style of leadership, along with the MAGA crowd that feels empowered by his nativism, bigotry, and anti-elitism. But no one would expect these people to abandon Trump. What’s more concerning are the ideological conservatives who have convinced themselves the liberalism of the mainstream Democratic Party poses a greater danger to American democracy than MAGA authoritarianism. These are the Republicans who disapproved of the 1/6 insurrection but are still more likely to get worked up over the prospect of higher taxes.
There are also Republicans who have concluded the only way for conservatives to hang on to power is to embrace Trump. Like the ideological conservatives, these strategic conservatives are more willing to accept authoritarianism than they are liberalism even if they are repulsed by Trumpism. Strategic conservatives, however, have longer term electoral consequences in mind. They realize there isn’t another politician out there at the moment—including a pugnacious Trump wannabe like DeSantis—who can motivate Republican voters the way Trump does. The marginal MAGA voter will stay home if Trump isn’t leading them, and without that bloc of voters, Democrats could very well crush the GOP at the polls. There’s also the sense among strategic conservatives that a “Trump-lite” candidate—someone who adopts the Trump platform but without the race-baiting, sexism, lies, legal problems, crude behavior, contempt for government, disdain for democratic norms, etc.—would be seen by Trump’s base as too conscientious and therefore inadequately devoted to the MAGA cause. Strategic conservatives have concluded the Republican Party and conservatism generally can’t succeed at the national level without either Trump at the helm of the party or a major party overhaul that might take decades to complete. Their hope is that Trump wins and that they can contain his worst impulses before something really bad happens, which is what every citizen in a democracy who supported a victorious prospective despot told themselves before watching their nation backslide into authoritarianism.
But there are many problems with this logic. An ideological conservative—someone committed to limited constitutional government and personal freedom—should know liberalism is not as problematic as authoritarianism and that Trumpism poses a serious threat to the American social order. A strategic conservative should know the Republican Party won’t be locked out of power if Democrats win a presidential election and that the separation of powers and federalism will ensure they still have opportunities to exercise power. In fact, if they are concerned about their party’s long-term prospects, one would think they would jump at a chance (say, right after 1/6) to distance themselves from the Trump brand.
I think, however, there’s a deeper psychological reason why so many Republicans continue to back Trump, something that goes beyond policy and ideology. Set aside the authoritarian types and the MAGA crowd; their support of Trump is explicable. I’m talking about the Republicans who should know better: Your neighbor down the street, your hometown chamber-of-commerce guy, your aunt and uncle, your mild-mannered congressman. Trump doesn’t get to 60% support in Republican primary polls nor crack 45% in the popular vote without them.
Here’s my theory: When someone is posed with a question of significance (Q. “Who should be President of the United States?”) and they get it so obviously wrong (A. “Celebrity Apprentice host Donald Trump”), it is hard for that person to admit their error without bringing their greater judgment into doubt. So rather than admit their mistake, they double-down on it and hope either events somehow redeem them or that force of will—insisting they were right all along until others capitulate or are compelled to accept their point of view—“proves” them right.
When it comes to self-image, Republicans have long thought of themselves as the “adults in the room.” According to Republicans, liberals have radical ideas, hatch harebrained schemes to solve public problems, and spend money recklessly. Conservatives, on the other hand, are even-keeled and even-tempered, stick to what works, and know how to live within their means. Theirs is a party of discipline, order, respectability, and managerial responsibility. Unlike the Democrats, an unruly coalition of special interests who behave either as idealistic, naïve teenagers or children captive to their appetites, Republicans are grown-ups who have their act together and therefore ought to be in charge.
That is, until Trump came along. For years, Republican party elders had worked to contain the MAGA impulse within their ranks. Now it had taken over, and mainstream Republicans had to convince themselves that this man—a libertine celebrity businessman who constantly flirted with bankruptcy, an arrogant loudmouth with a long record of incompetence and offensive behavior, an impulsive man-child who courted chaos, a buffoon who would have been more successful in life had he just gotten out of his own way—that that man was fit to be President of the United States. And when Trump’s critics told them he was a profound danger to the republic—a con man, a liar, and a cheat who couldn’t be trusted with power; a racist, a sexist, and a xenophobe who would only embolden those who stood for the most disgraceful aspects of American history; a demagogue who openly admired autocrats and longed to be one himself; a dimwit who wouldn’t know how to handle a crisis; a man who delighted in violence and cruelty—they insisted he was up for the job.
And they were so very, very wrong. Like wrong-side-of-history wrong.
Some Republicans could bring themselves to admit their mistake or at least withdraw their support once Trump reached a personal point of no return. But I suspect there are many others who would be too humiliated to make that concession. Perhaps it would wreck their image of themselves as wise citizens. Perhaps they fear their public reputation would suffer. Maybe they don’t want to be called a traitor to their party or run the risk of being told “I told you so” by a Democrat. So they double-down on Trump: Maybe he’ll win re-election, maybe he’ll put his detractors in their place, maybe he’ll win and do what needs to be done and prove everyone else wrong. And if Trump can’t pull that off, then FOX News and Truth Social can at least create a counter-reality that can contend with (and hopefully gain as much legitimacy as) reality. In that counter-reality, there are good and bad people on both sides, phone calls are perfect, scandals are hoaxes, lethal viruses aren’t deadly, elections are rigged, winners never lose, insurrectionists are peaceful and patriotic, and news you don’t like is fake. So our politics becomes a battle between realities, with one side ready to impose their delusion upon the other if they win. All because a bunch of Republicans can’t admit they were wrong.
But I would argue this psychological insecurity runs deeper than this. The Republican embrace of Trump is itself a double-down on two decades’ worth of double-downs. They were wrong about George W. Bush’s qualifications to serve as President of the United States. They were profoundly wrong about the justifications that led us into the War in Iraq. They were wrong about torture. They were wrong about the threat same-sex marriage posed to the institution of marriage. They were wrong about the threat—let alone existence—of climate change. They were wrong about the promise of deregulation, leading to the Great Recession. They were wrong about the benefits of trickle-down economics, leading to yawning income inequality. They were wrong about the qualifications of Sarah Palin to serve as vice president. They were wrong about Obamacare and the likelihood that law would sanction “death panels” and “pull the plug on grandma.” They were wrong about Obama’s birth certificate. They were wrong about Benghazi. They were wrong about the legitimacy of the Black Lives Matter movement. They were wrong about the pandemic and the efficacy of vaccines. They were wrong about the 2020 election results, which led to the 1/6 insurrection. They were wrong about Donald Trump.
What do you do if you’ve been so very wrong on so many big issues for so long? Do you admit your mistakes? Do you take a step back before leaping to a new conclusion? Do you check your sources, make sure you’re getting good information and good advice, open yourself up to new perspectives?
Or does it get to a point where the mistakes are too significant, too obvious, too avoidable to admit without bringing your judgment and sense of self into question? As a citizen of a democracy where the people rule, what does it say about your claim to power if you and your side always ends up on the wrong side of these major issues? Perhaps this is why so many Republicans are doubling-down yet again on Donald Trump: Because rather than admit to yet another enormous error that would thoroughly undermine their credibility in the public sphere and potentially expose years or even decades of missteps, they have concluded that wrong upon wrong upon wrong can crush and make a right.
That’s a scary prospect not only because it results in bad governance, but because it sets us on a path toward totalitarianism. As the errors pile up and become more blatantly wrong, the need to maintain and enforce the illusion of their righteousness becomes ever more pressing. We’ve reached a point where Republicans have a leading presidential candidate who is willing to do just that, a man who has no use for a reality that doesn’t serve him and who commands followers ready to get him the reality he wants through force. It is beyond time to repudiate him and the party that enables him.
I must say this: Democrats make mistakes as well. The mistakes they’ve made over the past two decades, however, have not been as significant as the mistakes Republicans have piled on top of one another in that same time span. And as annoying as the Democrats may be as a political party, the things that drive us nuts about them are just that—the foibles of a big-tent national political party. The Republican Party, on the other hand, is in the midst of a prolonged nervous breakdown. Finally, while there are aspects of the conservative character that color the deleterious behavior of Republicans today, what I have written here shouldn’t be read as a critique of conservatism per se. While I am no conservative, it would be foolish of me to dismiss conservatism out of hand. My critique here is directed at politicized modern-day American conservatism, that is, the contemporary Republican Party.
So what to do about this sorry state of affairs? Some would argue Democrats should show Republicans some measure of grace: No “I told you so’s,” let bygones be bygones if they abandon Trump, accept that anyone could sincerely make a mistake like that in the heat of the moment, let them know we still accept their judgment, help ease them back into the political mainstream. But that will only work if Republicans themselves admit the errors of their way and break with the MAGA movement. The GOP can’t just get a new coat of paint and call itself renovated. Either MAGA needs to be expelled from the Republican Party or non-MAGA Republicans need to ditch the party. The onus for fixing this problem is on Republicans. Doing so will probably require the party to go into the political wilderness for a few election cycles, but that’s the price they ought to pay for hitching themselves to an autocrat. Yes, that would diminish conservatism’s electoral prospects, but more significantly, it would crush the electoral prospects of authoritarianism as well.
That Trump townhall doesn’t suggest Republicans are ready to do that yet, meaning Democrats are just going to have to beat them at the polls, hopefully by a large enough of a margin that renders this iteration of the Republican Party politically unviable. In other words, cut off Trump’s GOP once and for all so they can’t double-down again. The country would probably love nothing more right now than a boring low-stakes election. It’s just not going to happen in 2024.
We’re really doing this. Again.
Signals and Noise
Looks like Don Trump may have some more legal trouble on his hands: The Village People have sent him a cease and desist order demanding that a group dressed as the Village People quit performing “Macho Man” at events at Mar-a-Lago. (Truth be told, I’m surprised a group like the Village People can still legally perform in Florida.)
Following up last week’s article about the debt ceiling — By Jonathan Chait of New York magazine: “The Media is Normalizing Debt Ceiling Extortion” (“This is all totally false. These arguments conflate negotiation, which is historically common in debt-ceiling bills, with extortion, which isn’t. It is true that, historically, debt-ceiling bills have also been wrapped together with other measures. But what McCarthy is doing is not that. He is threatening to refuse to lift the debt ceiling unless President Biden grants him concessions. The parties are not engaged in “horse-trading,” because all the horses are being handed by one party to the other. They are only negotiating over the size and contours of the ransom payment.”)
As proof of the above, Republicans have rejected all overtures by Democrats to reduce the deficit by raising taxes or closing tax loopholes.
Biden appears willing to accept increased work requirements for social welfare programs in order for Republican to vote to
raise the debt ceilingact as responsible legislators.
With Trump’s return to the White House a possibility, Michael Schaeffer of Politico writes that federal government institutions have done little to erect guardrails that could contain a despotic president despite numerous calls for reform.
“I was able to kill Roe v. Wade… Without me there would be no 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks, or whatever is finally agreed to. Without me the pro Life movement would have just kept losing.”—Don Trump on his Truth Social account. I’m not sure that’s a winning message in a country where a solid majority of Americans want to preserve a woman’s right to choose.
Ronald Brownstein writes in The Atlantic about Trump’s espousal of explicitly sexist beliefs and how that reflects a resistance within the wider Republican Party toward allowing women greater rights and more prominent roles in American society.
A new report by the University of California San Francisco documents dozens of instances in which clinical care for pregnancies has been obstructed by the end of Roe v. Wade.
Emily Bazelon of the New York Times notes the Comstock Act—an 1873 law that made it a crime to send obscenity, contraceptives, abortifacients, sex toys, letters containing sexual content, and information about the preceding items through the U.S. mail—is back in vogue among Republican lawmakers looking to crack down on the distribution of abortion pills. Various Supreme Court rulings over the past century have gutted the Comstock Act, but Republicans are hoping conservative judges won’t see it that way.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) has taken offense to being called a “white supremacist,” the use of which she equates to being called the n-word. She said this in the context of complaining about the “aggressive” behavior of a Black representative toward her. (BTW, here’s a story about Greene speaking at a white nationalist conference last year, which essentially prompted Mitch McConnell to call her a white supremacist.)
Special counsel John Durham, appointed by Trump to investigate the FBI’s investigation of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, published his final report, concluding that while no crimes were committed, the FBI rushed into its investigation, was too quick to assume Trump had done something wrong, and relied on unconfirmed information to push its case forward. Certainly problematic, but also something of a nothingburger in the long run. Republican Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville is angry though: “If people don’t go to jail for this, the American people should just stand up and say, ‘Listen, enough’s enough, let’s don’t have elections anymore.’” Been there, done that, Coach. Weird how a report whose moral is “Don’t harass people without evidence” led a senator to want to harass (and prosecute) people despite a lack of evidence.
The FBI “whistleblowers” Rep. Jim Jordan dragged before Congress this week have ties to conspiracy theorists and far-right groups. They also admitted under oath to recently taking money from ex-Trump official Kash Patel.
Tim Miller of The Bulwark notes Republicans are back to accusing Democrats of murdering whistleblowers and informants.
Democratic California Senator Dianne Feinstein needs to resign. The dilemma is if she is in the state of mind to do so of her own volition.
Sally Goldenberg of Politico looks at the pickle Ron DeSantis finds himself in as he comes closer to officially running for president: He wants to claim he is more electable than the guy who lost the 2020 election, but he doesn’t dare admit Trump actually lost that election.
Steven Shepard of Politico reminds readers it is not too late for DeSantis to bounce back in the Republican primary.
David A. Fahrenthold and Tiff Fehr of the New York Times have a stunning example of the conservative-industrial complex: A group of conservative operators used pro-police and pro-veteran robocalls to raise $89 million in small-donor donations for political campaigns on behalf of those causes. Of that money, only $826,000 was spent on political action; the remaining $88 million was pocketed by the firms making the calls and the operatives who hired them.
The CEO of Dominion said he expects his company to collapse due to reputational damage despite the $787 million settlement struck with FOX News stemming from their defamation suit against the cable network.
Kevin Sullivan of the Washington Post examines state legislative supermajorities (where the majority party in the state legislature controls enough seats to overturn a governor’s veto) and finds the output of such bodies is hardly representative of the people, since districts have to be gerrymandered hard to generate those results.
Republicans have long been advocates of local control, but Texas’s Republican state government is moving aggressively to prevent localities from passing laws that differ from state laws.
Under the leadership of Ron DeSantis, Florida has prohibited public universities and colleges from funding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and forbid general education courses from teaching material examining the idea of systemic racism. I guess that means Florida’s public college students won’t be able to learn about this bill then.
The Florida Department of Education is investigating a teacher for showing her class the 2022 Disney animated film Strange World. Florida law prohibits elementary teachers from teaching about gender and sexual identity. Strange World, like the world we inhabit, contains an openly gay character. For those keeping score at home, the film also contains heterosexual characters.
Ron DeSantis’s war on Mickey Mouse has now cost Florida 2,000 jobs, as Disney cancelled plans to open a new $1 billion corporate complex in the state and relocate employees there from California.
A Democratic data firm found the key to Democrats’ success in 2022 was high turnout among voters aged 18-41.
A new study found election denialism cost Republicans between 2.3-3.7% in support in statewide elections in 2022. That seems like a depressingly small number.
Democrats had some good results in elections last week, headlined by a victory in the Jacksonville, Florida, mayoral race and the defeat of a Republican nominee in Colorado Springs by an unaffiliated candidate for mayor. Both are Republican-leaning cities.
The end of Title 42 on the U.S. border did not result in the surge of migrants many had predicted. Still, many migrants are waiting in Mexico near the border under fraught circumstances for an opportunity to enter the country.
Check out Annie Lowrey’s interview with Matthew Desmond, author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Evicted and the recently released Poverty, by America.
The Washington Post’s Christine Emba visited a gun show in Virginia to ask gun owners what guns meant to them. It came down to one word: Protection. Many, however, could not say what they were protecting themselves from.
Emily Badger, Robert Gebeloff and Josh Katz of the New York Times’ The Upshot look at how college graduates are moving out of coastal cities with high costs of living to more affordable mid-sized American cities.
Following up on an article from February, the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision ruled Google and Twitter were not liable for hosting terrorist videos on their websites. The Court ruled the plaintiffs could not prove the companies gave the people who posted the videos any special treatment.
Montana has banned Tik-Tok.
For the first time since the Labor Department began tracking it in 1972, the unemployment rate for Black Americans has dropped below 5%.
The U.S. has signaled to its allies in Europe that it won’t block the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
The Pentagon has rescinded claims it killed an unnamed senior al-Qaeda leader in a drone strike in Syria after the family of the man who was killed—a father of ten herding sheep at the time of the strike—insisted he had no ties to terrorists.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did better than expected and nearly avoided a run-off in national elections last week. The run-off will occur in two weeks.
The Greek government was caught rounding up migrants (including children) and abandoning them on a life raft in the middle of the Aegean Sea.
Thailand’s opposition parties trounced parties affiliated with the ruling military junta in recent elections.