Blog No. 281 discussed Donald Trump’s potential criminal liability stemming from his role in the January 6 insurrection, and promised that Part II would assess his political future. When Part I was posted on February 16, two things were clear, and they have become even clearer in the days that followed: First, Trump is not going to go quietly and recede from the political scene any time soon, and second, Trump has an exceedingly bumpy road ahead, one that may ultimately leave him in a political ditch. What was unclear, and remains unclear, is the extent to which Trump will play a role in 2022 and 2024. Least clear of all is what the future of the Republican Party will be after Trump departs.
Trump is Not Going Disappear (Not Soon, Anyway)
It may have been tempting to hope that Trump might take up a relatively quiet retirement devoted to running (or repairing) the Trump Organization, playing golf, fending off myriad legal challenges and producing a memoir through a suitable ghost writer. That would be more than enough for most of us. But it should have been clear to all that Trump would not voluntarily leave the public eye while bearing the hated stamp of a LOSER. And why would he do that while he still has a firm grip on the Republican Party?
One could understand, with difficulty, how some people of intelligence and decency could voter for Trump in 2016, and even understand, with considerably more difficulty, how such people could vote for Trump in 2020. But it is hard for many of us to grasp how anyone who observed Trump’s conduct on, and leading up to, January 6 could fail to see him for what he is: a highly unsatisfactory human being and the worst–and most dangerous–president in American history. Nevertheless, polling shows that loyalty to Trump appears undiminished among grass roots Republicans. According to a Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll published on February 21, clear majorities of Republicans believe Trump was not responsible for the January 6 insurrection and would vote for him in 2024.
Trump’s intentions, at least in the short run, were made obvious by his acceptance of an invitation to be the featured speaker on Sunday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He will undoubtedly proclaim once again that he won the 2020 election and demand retribution against those few Republicans who have had the courage to turn against him, such as Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and Senator Ben Sasse. Trump will speak at 3:40 EST; his speech will probably be carried on cable news channels but will also be available on the CPAC website as will the entire program beginning on Friday. Readers who are curious can find the entire agenda here.
As noted by the New York Times:
On Friday morning, panelists including Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who has enthusiastically backed Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud, will gather onstage for a 35-minute segment called “Protecting Elections: Why Judges & Media Refused to Look at the Evidence.” That theme picks up again on Sunday morning, when speakers will discuss what they call the “Failed States” of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada — states that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in November, and where Mr. Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the results sputtered.
The Times also observed that:
The agenda includes panels on the debt, abortion, education, Big Tech and “cancel culture.” But with so many segments anchored in the 2020 election, the conference appears to be less about mapping the party’s future than relitigating its past.
On conspicuous display at the conference was a statue of Trump rendered in gold. I was far from alone in being reminded of the account of the golden calf in Exodus 32. As reported in Market Watch
the statue produced a backlash of biblical proportions: “[T]he inevitable comparisons to the Old Testament story of the Israelites worshiping a false idol in the form of a golden calf spread across social media faster than you can say “Moses.”
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, the posture of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is conspicuously different from that of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in the House. McConnell, despite having voted to acquit Trump had delivered a scathing indictment of Trump and has not spoken to Trump in months. He has yielded only to the extent of acknowledging in a Thursday interview that, if Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024, he would support him. McCarthy, on the other hand, after criticizing Trump in the wake of the January 6 attack, subsequently flew to Mar-a Lago and appears to be on board again.
Beyond different personal assessments of Trump, McConnell’s and McCarthy’s postures reflect their dissimilar constituencies. The House Republican caucus is dominated by Trumpians, 139 of whom voted against certifying Biden’s election–as against only 8 Senators. McCarthy saved Liz Cheney from a move to oust her from her No.3 position in the House leadership, but their relationship remains awkward. At a GOP leadership conference on Wednesday, McCarthy and Cheney were asked if Trump should speak at the CPAC conference. While McCarthy replied that he should, Cheney took a quite different tack:
That’s up to CPAC. I’ve been clear on my views about President Trump. I don’t believe that he should be playing a role in the future of the party or the country.
McCarthy then abruptly ended the news conference by saying, “On that high note, thank you very much.”
Cheney and Kinzinger are almost certain to face well-financed primary opponents in 2022 as may others among the ten House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment. In the Senate, however, only one of the seven who voted to convict Trump, Lisa Murkowski, will be up for reelection in 2022.
McConnell is not up for reelection until 2026, and his Republican caucus is far less dominated by hard-core Trumpists than is McCarthy’s. Nevertheless, his position as Minority (or Majority) Leader could be at risk at some point. McConnell, however, is a wily operator who is not without resources to defend his position and to try to move the party away from Trump. He is expected to be active in Republican primaries in 2022 opposing Trump candidates.
Trump’s Bumpy Legal Road
Apart from the relatively few open defections on Capitol Hill, there are considerable bumps in Trump’s road to a candidacy in 2024, or even to an influential role 2022. While Part I discussed Trump’s potential criminal liability arising out of the January 6 insurrection, there is a plethora of other criminal and civil suits that will challenge him. Most notable among these may be the investigation of Trump and the Trump Organization by Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance. That investigation got a significant boost when the Supreme Court permitted Vance to obtain Trump’s tax returns and related financial records. Even before that ruling, Vance had signaled the seriousness of his investigation by adding to his team a highly regarded former prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz. (Although Trump’s tax returns furnished to Vance will not become public unless and until the case reaches indictment and trial, they could become public through another pending proceeding brought by the House of Representatives. The Trump administration resisted the House’s action, and the court has paused the proceeding to give the Biden administration time to determine its position.)
A potentially significant civil suit against Trump was brought on February 16 by Congressman Bennie Thompson. The suit seeks damages from Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Proud Boys International and Oath Keepers for their various responsibilities for the January 6 insurrection. Thompson is represented in the suit by the ACLU and the action was brought under a federal statute designed to protect the government from interference from the Ku Klux Klan. Depending on how the litigation progresses, it could increase pressure on the Justice Department to bring a criminal action against Trump for his part in the January 6 disgrace.
Another pending civil suit, less significant but still interesting, is the defamation action brought by journalist E. Jean Carroll arising out of Trump’s denial of her rape allegations. Trump may soon be required to give a deposition in that case. A somewhat similar case, by a former Apprentice contestant, Summer Zervos, is also pending.
Finally (for now), is the investigation by the Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney, Fani Willis, into Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss in the state by a phone call in which he variously pleaded, threatened and cajoled Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” (the exact number he needed to win Georgia.)
It may be that, short of conviction and incarceration, nothing will serve to disenchant Trump loyalists. Indeed, even that might not be sufficient. Beyond Trump’s notorious boast of being able to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing support, older readers with long memories may remember Boston’s legendary Mayor, James Michael Curley. Mayor Curley spent five months in prison during his fourth term, and after his first day back, he declared in Trumpian fashion, “I have accomplished more in one day than has been done in the five months of my absence.”
The Future of the Republican Party
Sooner or later, one way or another, Trump will disappear from sight, and what will then remain of the so-called Republican Party is a matter of conjecture. Some observers have taken a mildly optimistic view. David Brooks, writing “Letter to a Young Republican” in the New York Times, acknowledged that today the Republican Party is “intellectually and morally bankrupt.” but went onto insist:
[T]here are many Republicans who want to change their party and make it a vehicle for conservative ideas.
These people are energized as never before and feel their whole lives have been preparation for the coming moral, intellectual and political struggle. This is a struggle to create a Republican Party that is democratic and not authoritarian, patriotic and not nationalistic, conservative and not reactionary, benevolent and not belligerent, intellectually self-confident and not apocalyptic and dishonest.
Peter Wehner, also writing in the Times, took a similar view. He was equally harsh in his assessment of the current Republican Party, but saw a path to salvation:
So for conservatives who are longing for a responsible political home and for those who believe healthy conservative parties are vital to the survival of democracy, what can be done to salvage the Republican Party?
To begin with, it needs leaders who are willing to say that something has gone very, very wrong. They don’t have to dwell on it, or make it the focus of their efforts every minute, but the next generation of Republican leaders cannot pretend that the last few years were politics as they ought to be. They need to acknowledge that a sickness set in and take steps to cure it….
[Republicans] must begin, again, to rely on think tanks and journals from various wings of the party to work toward a policy agenda to meet the challenges of the modern world, as they did in the 1970s and 1980s. Republican leaders need to change the way their party thinks about itself, and therefore the way the country thinks about the Republican Party. One way to do that is for different figures to put forward their vision for a new Republican Party, to see what gains traction.
I would like to share Brooks’s and Wehner’s cautious optimism, but I find that I cannot. It is well and good to encourage intellectual ferment and new visions, but whether any of it will sway what we have come to know of the Trump base is quite another matter. I would be pleased to see the Republican Party become a constructive and humane force in American politics in my lifetime, but political and actuarial realities suggest this is not likely.
Doug, I so appreciate your points on all this. I had totally expected Trump to form a third party or buy a news channel after the events of Jan. 6, thinking it was finally a bridge too far to remain the reigning force of the GOP. Why am I surprised that again, he is continuing to garner support for his “brand” of reality and his embrace of authoritarianism? Or that McConnell, even as he clearly sees Trump as damaging to the GOP in particular and the US in general, would still throw his support to Trump in 2024? Is McConnell simply trying to play both sides of this, and if so – WHY? I had briefly hoped to see Biden, McConnell, Schumer, McCarthy and Pelosi find a way to govern in a less partisan way for awhile at least, to simply move the US forward in addressing the pandemic and getting the US back on it’s feet with large scale infrastructure funding at the very least. Honestly, wouldn’t that reflect well on both parties? Even Kevin McCarthy expressed his belief that Trump had responsibility in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. But it’s as if it never happened to most of the GOP that personally experienced it at the same time Democrats did. Maybe there is Kool-Aid being passed around at CPAC.
At this point, I’d love to see another party. I’m a Democrat, but it would be so refreshing and hopeful for our country to have a party comprised of conservatives that don’t worship at the altar of Donald Trump. With some leading figures – the ones you have noted and more – could they make headway in restoring some sanity and a real party alternative to what has become of the GOP?
I agree with Monica. Biden and Harris should pass in 2024. Ideally, I still would like to see Jeb Bush as the Republican candidate, but that ain’t gonna happen. Not to lose hope, ye faint of heart. There is Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a centrist, common sense candidate. You remember common sense, that very faint speck in our rearview mirror. He has been an excellent governor with strong appeal in both parties.
Is the Republican Party dead? Not if it steps back from the precipice. After 1964 everybody was writing the party’s obituary after Barry Goldwater’s (my first presidential vote) landslide loss. The pundits were predicting it would take the party twenty years to recover. Four years later Richard Nixon was elected president.
I greatly respect, Doug, your well-based, realistic pessimism about the current Republican Party being able to rediscover their moral compass and correct their course to become a responsible Conservative party, but I do hold out that three external pressures could readily facilitate this outcome. The significant “if’s” are 1) if the Biden administration does well in the immediate future in dealing with the major problems confronting the nation, 2) if the legal investigations against Trump and his backers result in some convincing, clear results of their illegality, and 3) if the Democrats manage to do well in the 2022 midterm elections in spite of the GOP’s continuing efforts to limit voting rights in key swing states. Big “if’s”, but I do believe that many Republican voters will readily revert to the party that David Brooks, Brett Stephens, and other responsible conservative journalists write of in their editorials, if only given the chance.
Doug,
LOL, the actuarial realities are not on my side either…I’m planning to ask my grandson to invent a computer-age ouiji (sp?) board device to let me know how it all turns out. That said, Trump is a bit more than 3 years older than I am, so the actuarial realities might catch-up with him too, and his would-be “heirs” are a sad-sack lot: Ron Johnson seems to be the most genuinely detached from reality (and may not even harbor Presidential aspirations); Donny Jr. is dumb as a post; and the smarter and more cynical (Cruz, Cotton, Hawley…am I missing anyone?) come across as so painfully awkward, hard to imagine them stirring-up the MAGA crowds and inspiring “Golden-Calf-worthy” idolatry.
I’m betting on John Fetterman (the Dem Lt. Gov of PA, who’s running for Toomey’s seat) to change the tone of the debate; don’t know much about him, but he’s definitely got a “big-strong-guy-working-joe” persona (notwithstanding his MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of government).
Sorry President Biden, but best to step aside in 2024 (sorry Kamala too), but if Trump does manage to snag the 2024 GOP nomination, I want to see him on the debate stage with a guy who is almost 25 years younger and several inches taller. I just might live long enough to see that!
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