Republicans want to win — and Trump’s now a loser
A lot has changed since the FBI searched Mar-alago, the country club resort and unofficial classified document storage facility where Donald Trump resides. Back in August, the search was denounced by many on the right as an unprecedented outrage befitting a banana republic that challenged the very legitimacy of the American regime.
“I’ve seen enough. The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” House GOP leader Kevin Mccarthy said at the time. “When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — a peddler of pro-trump kiddie propaganda — insisted that this affront required simply nominating Trump by acclamation: “We need to rally around him and simply say, ‘He is the candidate.’”
FROM THE RIGHT
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Star Parker
Jonah Goldberg Armstrong Williams Pat Buchanan
Marc Thiessen George Will
But on Nov. 18, when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as a special counsel to investigate Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-lago, the response from Republicans was muted.
Most of the Republicans claiming to be outraged by the appointment are the same Republicans who are always outraged by everything. Trump, of course, threw a tantrum. He said that among “the gravest threats to our civilization... None is greater than the weaponization of the justice system, the FBI, and the DO J.” He then proceeded to clarify what he meant by “our civilization”: Me.
Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Biggs and other fringy types had a field day. As did Sen. Ted Cruz, whose new book alleges the weaponization of the Justice Department. He says that this is an example of, well, the weaponization of the DO J.
But Mccarthy said nothing. Mitch Mcconnell — who condemned the Mara-lago raid — said nothing.
Some other presidential wannabes offered mostly tepid criticism. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo worried that special counsels take too long. Former Vice President Mike Pence told NBC’S Chuck Todd that it would have been nice if the Justice Department could have avoided the search of Mar-a-lago because it was “divisive.”
Stories coming out of the Republican Jewish
Coalition conference in
Las Vegas weren’t about unified GOP opposition to the special counsel; they were about how one prominent Republican after another said it was time for new leadership.
So, what changed? Obviously, the midterms ushered in a vibe shift of biblical proportions on the right. The data couldn’t be more clear: Overly Trumpaligned candidates were a drag on the GOP.
Now, I think there are loftier reasons to oppose Trump than failing to win, but being a loser for the party is probably the most effective message for Republicans.
But besides presidential ambitions and a desire to get the GOP past the Trump captivity, there’s another reason why most GOP leaders aren’t rushing to Trump’s defense. They think he’s guilty — because he almost surely is.
Now, as a constitutional matter his involvement in the Jan. 6 effort to overturn the election may be too complicated to prosecute criminally — which was all the more reason he should have been convicted in his impeachment trial. But the classified documents case is straightforward. Indeed, Trump has yet to offer a plausible or even consistent explanation.
It wasn’t clear that Trump had no defense last August. It also wasn’t clear he’d come out of the midterms damaged goods. Such clarity explains a lot.