The GOP: Is there life after Trumpism?
Donald Trump once bragged that if he shot somebody on Fifth Avenue “I wouldn’t lose voters,” said Peter Wehner in The New York Times. His acquittal last week by Republicans in his Senate impeachment trial shows how right his prophecy was. Five people died when Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol in hope of reversing his election defeat, yet the GOP remains a Trump party. Still, there are some “embers in the ashes” that may signal “the timid start of a new, post-Trump” era. Seven GOP senators found the backbone to deem Trump guilty of inciting the Jan. 6 riot with reckless rhetoric. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted to acquit Trump on the technicality that he’d already left office, but delivered a blistering speech denouncing Trump’s “wild falsehoods” about a stolen election and his “unconscionable” behavior. Clearly sick of Trump and MAGA extremists, McConnell pledged to support only “electable” Republican candidates in the future. Trump reacted by declaring war, said Mike Debonis in The Washington Post. The former president dismissed McConnell as a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and vowed to back pro-Trump Republicans in the 2022 midterms. He also told his followers that his “movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun.”
In the coming power struggle, the GOP establishment doesn’t stand a chance, said Jonathan Bernstein in Bloomberg.com. The vast majority of elected Republicans seem happy “to let the party become more and more Trumpy.” That includes “playing footsie with white supremacist and other violent groups,” embracing authoritarianism, and being willing to keep power through threats and violence. Republican voters share these views, said Tara Palmeri in Politico.com. In a poll this week, 59 percent of GOP voters say they want Trump to “play a major role in their party going forward”—a number that’s risen 18 points since shortly after the Capitol riot. Whether establishment Republicans like it or not, the GOP rank and file just “can’t quit Trump.”
Trump faces so many potential criminal prosecutions he will probably never run again, said Gary Abernathy in The Washington Post. But “while Trump will be gone,” all signs indicate that “Trumpism is the GOP’s future.” Trump acolytes fill Congress and the 30-plus state legislatures controlled by Republicans. “What is Trumpism without Trump?” It’s strident advocacy for individual freedom, deregulation, secure borders, an “America First” foreign policy, and an “unapologetic embrace of ‘God and Country’ values.” Trump’s popularity was rooted in “patriotic indignation,” said Charles Kesler in the New York Post. That spirit will define the GOP for years to come, “even without Trump’s continuing political presence.”
Trumpism’s real spirit is anti-democratic rage, said Michael Gerson in The Washington Post. The movement’s core belief—heavily promoted by Trump himself and right-wing media—is that “white, Christian America” faces imminent destruction by evil liberal elites, and “must be preserved by any means necessary.” In a new poll, a stunning 55 percent of Republicans agree with the statement that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” His angry followers “feel cheated rather than defeated,” and they aren’t going away. In fact, Trumpists may grow even more militant, said Ronald Brownstein in CNN.com. The country is becoming only more racially diverse, more culturally progressive, and more secular—the very changes that gave rise to Trumpism. If Republicans won’t or can’t “excommunicate” their extremists, democracy itself is in peril.