American democracy is still in danger
Donald Trump was probably right when he said he could shoot someone and not lose political support from his diehard base. Even as the glaring hypocrisy of their continued approval stares them in the face, they chant and cheer and proudly sport their red hats.
All of which raises the question: has partisan tribalism grown so entrenched that the president can get away with just about anything?
Last night in West Virginia, Trump’s hard-core base broke out in enthusiastic chants of “Lock her up,” referring to Hillary Clinton.
They did so hours after Trump’s former personal lawyer pleaded guilty to federal crimes that carry jail time; hours after Trump’s former campaign chairman was convicted of federal crimes that carry a potential sentence of more than a decade “locked up”; and hours after Trump was himself implicated in a criminal conspiracy.
They want Trump to jail someone who has been investigated and cleared of criminal wrongdoing, but they are outraged that Trump associates face jail time after either being convicted by a jury or pleading guilty to criminal wrongdoing.
They claim to want to “drain the swamp” of Washington’s corruption and criminality, apparently unaware that the swamp flooded the Trump campaign and the Oval Office but is now being drained by law enforcement in the form of indictments, convictions and guilty pleas.
The Trump mob’s hypocrisy is fueled by hypocritical elites on Trump’s staff, his legal team and his media cheerleaders.
Rudy Giuliani’s two-faced defense of Michael Cohen as an honest lawyer was rapidly replaced by his attack on Michael Cohen as a dishonest lawyer.
As soon as Cohen morphed from someone who was useful to the White House to someone who was useful to federal prosecutors, Giuliani’s assessment of Cohen morphed, too.
The pro-Trump media hypocrisy is blatant, too. Three days before the 2016 presidential election, Fox News commentator Judge Jeanine Pirro said: “We cannot have a country led by a president, subject to ongoing criminal investigations, potential indictments and neverending hearings... and irrespective of what happens to her, whether she’s indicted or even guilty, it doesn’t matter... How do you think the world is going to look at the United States when a woman under federal criminal investigation, who has lied repeatedly to the American people, is elected?”
Every time she says “her,” change it to “him,” and you’ve got a damning attack on Trump.
And yet night after night Pirro goes out and cheerleads for him. The hypocrisy is staggering – and it trickles down to those who watch Fox News and populate his roaring crowds.
It’s irrational to believe these criminal convictions are “fake news” or part of a “deep state plot” when the convicted felons surrounding Trump have either admitted they are guilty or been convicted by a jury of their peers.
Political scientists have an explanation for this phenomenon.
It’s a blend of three interrelated trends: an intensification of partisan tribalism, in which rooting for a political party is about identity rather than policy; an intensification of polarization, in which rival political parties are seen as the enemy rather than as compatriots who hold different views; and an intensification of motivated reasoning, in which voters leap to the most extreme conclusions about their rivals while excusing the most egregious behavior by the person they support.
These trends were not created by Trump, but he has taken advantage of them masterfully.
Still there are glimmers of hope. Investigators only care about Trump tweets insofar as they may incriminate him. He can shout “fake news” and “witch hunt,” but the legal net is closing in on the biggest fish of all.
Equally important, Trump’s base isn’t big enough to deliver electoral majorities to Republicans. Perhaps 30 per cent of Americans will stick with Trump even if the criminal evidence against him is concrete and damning.
After all, President Richard Nixon’s approval rating was around 25 per cent when he resigned in disgrace after being caught redhanded.
Despite those glimmers of optimism that the president’s immoral and potentially illegal conduct matters, the trends that Trump has manipulated to his advantage imperil American democracy. Between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of Americans are willing to support a racist bigot who lies routinely, lashes out at democratic institutions like a thin-skinned despot, has surrounded himself with people who turned out to be corrupt (and now convicted) criminals and may even be a criminal himself.
Trump may finally have created a scandal that he can’t escape, but the dangerously authoritarian and cult-like reasoning that he has exploited are a threat to American democracy that we cannot escape.
Brian Klaas is a fellow in global politics at the London School of Economics. He is the co-author of How to Rig an Election and the author of The Despot’s Apprentice and The Despot’s Accomplice.