Extremism in Trump’s world may have limits after all

Robert Delaney says bizarre recent headlines around notable Republicans suggest US politics is spinning out of control, but there is reason to hope

Developments in the US political arena are coming at us too quickly to discern what they mean for the general election that is less than six months away.

We are getting courtroom descriptions of former adult film star Stormy Daniels’ encounter with the once and possibly future president Donald Trump, revelations about animals shot in a gravel pit by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem – once a leading candidate to be Trump’s running mate – and a raucous slapdown of an attempt by one of Trump’s most steadfast allies in the House of Representatives to oust the chamber’s speaker.

Forget the “shining city on a hill”, US democracy is looking more like a co-production by Quentin Tarantino of Reservoir Dogs fame and Wes Craven, the master of cinematic horror.

In a world where semiotics and sound bite messaging drown out rational discourse, Republicans have fully embraced the party’s assigned colour. If there is a theme running through its messaging, it is blood.

We have heard Trump speak of a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win in November, remarks he claimed were taken out of context, just like his “will be wild” call to supporters just ahead of the deadly insurrection of January 6, 2021. Not to be outdone, Arizona Republican US Senate candidate Kari Lake told her supporters to “strap on a Glock” to prepare for this year’s election.

Weeks later, the comments by Trump and Lake have largely vanished from the headlines as they continue to throw rhetorical bombs and attack the judicial systems in which they are both ensnared. For their most ardent supporters, the message is received and entrenched.

Other Republicans, hoping to limit the extent to which these comments alienate independent voters, pretend there is nothing unusual about this. Everyone else is on a treadmill of outrage, too out of breath to unpack how damaging the comments are.

Then came the political memoir by Noem, who didn’t seem to understand how dear dogs are to American hearts or that journalists might fact check her false claim to have met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Her animal killing spree and her other falsehoods appear to have ended her hopes for a national political career.

The conclusion we might draw from all of this is that, for the first time, we are seeing some limits to extremism in Trump’s world, where the January 6 insurrectionists are “patriots”, the FBI is part of a pernicious deep state and autocratic leaders such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are valorised.

This must be troubling for leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, who undoubtedly wants to see a second Trump presidency. It would be an administration that, according to the candidate’s own words, would turn the cross hairs of the American judiciary and all other bureaucratic tools at his disposal towards the enemy within.

Even more worrying for Putin and anyone aligned with him should be House Speaker Mike Johnson’s work to pass the bill that authorises some US$60 billion in aid for Ukraine. The move, which sparked an effort by a handful of far-right Republicans to force the speaker’s gavel out of his hands, provides some hope for those in his party who believe in the legacy of former president Ronald Reagan whose biggest foreign policy achievement was the hard line he took against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Speaking under a painting of Reagan in his office during an interview published by Politico last week, Johnson had this to say about the effort to oust him. “There are hot wars around the globe,” he said. “We have allies in jeopardy, our border’s wide open. The cost of living is through the roof. The crime rate’s through the roof. We’ve got antisemitism and angry mobs on college campuses. This is no time for frivolous palace intrigue and politics.”

He put “allies in jeopardy”, a key priority for Reaganite Republicans and most Democrats, ahead of the other items, which the Trumpist wing have raised in attempts to derail aid to Ukraine.

This suggests that, for the moment, the most powerful Republican in Washington is behind an effort that Reagan would have championed.

But is Johnson genuinely looking to protect the rules-based global order championed by Washington? Or is it more that he’s aware of President Xi Jinping’s courting of autocrats such as Orban and pursing a “partnership without limits” with Putin.

Perhaps Johnson is smart enough to see how damaging it will become for Republicans to support Beijing’s allies. For Ukraine and the rest of Washington’s allies, this matters little. They just hope Johnson won’t flip his list of priorities.