Republicans must repudiate antisemites and unhinged Trump
Republicans who feign outrage over the antisemitism and white supremacism permeating their party are being laughingly disingenuous. The dirty little secret is that bigots will keep their seat at the party’s table for the most basic of all political reasons:
Many GOP candidates can’t win without them.
The hatred of Jews on full display recently at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-lago retreat represents a small, but seemingly growing, portion of the party’s base. But with its key demographic of old white males dying off, the political party that’s lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections can’t be too discriminating about what its supporters believe. Given the party’s fragile hold on control of the next U.S. House, expect white supremacists to regularly have their way with leadership.
In one of the many enduring scenes in the movie “Casablanca,” the French police captain played by Claude Rains professes to be “shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on” in Rick’s Café, the smoke-filled nightclub in Morocco owned by Humphrey Bogart’s character. Moments after Rains orders the place closed, an employee quietly hands him a fistful of cash: “Your winnings, sir.”
Rains was no more shocked to learn of gambling in Bogart’s bar than those 74 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020 should have been when, two months after losing his reelection bid, the sitting president incited a deadly invasion of the U.S. Capitol and attempted to overturn a lawfully held election. When someone spends four years noddingly embracing violence and lying about almost everything, those who claimed to be “shocked” at what happened Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C., were either hopelessly naïve or untruthful.
Republicans are now again in shock, this time over Trump dining at a Mar-alago dinner table with Ye (Kayne West) and Nick Fuentes, a pair of Hitler-loving Holocaust deniers. Nevertheless, the Republican outrage is hardly widespread, and almost always carefully worded.
In August, the Anti-defamation League’s Center on Extremism highlighted 16 high-profile candidates on the general election ballot with “ties to rightwing extremist ideologies and groups.” All were Republicans.
After Trump’s Nov. 22 dinner with the two Hitler lovers, the ADL noted, “Trump’s willingness to associate with figures who have repeatedly spread antisemitic and white supremacist tropes is deeply concerning and has not gone unnoticed by extremists.” Not since George Wallace has the radical right adored a prominent political figure the way it does Trump.
The main reason many prominent Republicans are now distancing themselves from Trump is because they know he can never again win a general election for president. But many of the party’s rank and file have yet to figure that out, as Trump remains atop the polls of possible 2024 Republican candidates.
After Trump went on an insane weekend rant, calling for “termination” of the Constitution because of the nonexistent “massive fraud” in the 2020 election, veteran Cleveland-area U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce, appearing on ABC’S “This Week” program, dodged three questions from host George Stephanopoulos about Trump’s comments and whether he could endorse him for president in 2024. On the fourth try, Joyce acknowledged he will “support whoever the Republican nominee is.”
This willingness to sell out his constituents came from someone considered one of the GOP’S more reasonable members of Congress. But there’s nothing reasonable about any elected official who would support a return to office of a man who regularly flirts with racists and antisemites. Joyce should explain his position to the large population of Jewish residents in his district.
Of the at least 2,000 columns I’ve written in the past 53 years, a number have included predictions and observations that missed the mark. One thing I’ve been right about for seven years has been my regular depiction of Trump as an amoral monstrosity, the most dishonest and repugnant man to ever occupy the White House.
Wise Republicans know Trump will never be president again. They know nominating him a third time might wreck the party. And they know with absolute certainty that independent voters, especially women, don’t want a president who strikes at the soul of this nation by unapologetically embracing racists and antisemites. The 74 million Americans who found a way to rationalize voting for Trump in 2020 should settle on a candidate less likely to shock them.