"This is About Politics" -- The Politics of Fear
This is about politics. — New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, explaining why he supports Donald Trump for president.
“Yes, me and 51 percent of America,” Sununu replied, when asked on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” if he would continue to support the former president even if Trump were convicted in the classified documents case. Sununu, who had endorsed Nikki Haley for president, now backs Trump even though the governor has said Trump contributed to the January 6 insurrection and even though the New Hampshire Republican believes Trump’s election denying is a lie. What is going on here?
There are no longer any profiles in courage — at least not in American politics today. Politics trumps (word carefully chosen) principle every time. In his interview with Stephanopoulos, Sununu explained that he can ignore all Trump’s negatives because he wants a Republican administration that will, presumably, cut taxes and slash regulations.
Well, yes, I guess we can assume that Sununu has given Trump his version of a big, wet sloppy one because the governor likes Trump’s fiscal policies. It is about politics, as Sununu says. And politics often comes down to a battle over who gets what, and Republicans do lust after those tax cuts. Trump’s signature accomplishment as president was the 2017 tax cut that benefitted his wealthy friends, and he has promised to cut taxes even further if he gets into the White House again.
Something else is at play here, though, in the stampede of prominent Republicans to get behind Trump. Sununu, after all, is not alone in bowing before Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, for example, believes Trump was “morally responsible” for January 6, but still endorsed the former president even though Trump has launched racist attacks on McConnell’s wife.
What is at play is a newer, scarier kind of politics: The politics of fear. Republicans, politicians and donors alike, are scared of Trump and his devoted followers. Even though Trump the politician is a proven loser (he lost the Senate in 2018, the presidency in 2020, and Republicans did far worse in the 2022 midterm elections than expected), he still wields unchallenged power with the Republican Party. His endorsement in primaries can make or break candidates. His recent takeover of the Republican National Committee further solidified his power within the Republican Party. Indeed, there is no longer a Republican Party. There is only the cult of Trump masquerading as a political party.
Republicans fear retaliation if they do not get on board the Trump train. Trump, who often says the quiet part out loud, has not been shy in threatening recalcitrant Republicans. In January, he warned every Republican with deep pockets that if they contributed to Haley’s campaign they “will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and we will not accept them.”
It is not just donors whom Trump has targeted. The former president has assailed congressional Republicans who do not share his appetite for vengeance and show reluctance to investigate President Joe Biden and his family. “The Republicans are very high class,” Trump said in 2022. “You got to get a little bit lower class.” Those who refuse to get in the gutter with Trump “should be immediately primaried.” Trump, by his own admission, plays mean and dirty.
It is not only political threats. Many in politics now fear physical harm if they cross Trump. Politicians charged with supervising the conduct of elections have been harassed in recent years for not echoing Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Former Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan reported that one Republican member of Congress who believed Trump lost the 2020 presidential election refused to certify the election results because, as this member told Meijer, referring to the January 6 insurrection, “If they’re willing to come after you inside the U.S. Capitol, what will they do when you’re at home with your kids?” For his part, Trump has predicted a “bloodbath” if he loses in November. The former president is not shy about using apocalyptic language, telling his supporters, “I am you warrior, I am your justice,… I am your retribution.” (He has stopped just short of “I am your savior,” but he may go there yet.)
The threats are working. Republicans are lining up behind their leader. Just last week, for example, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Hume Kennerly resigned from the board of the Gerald Ford R. Presidential Foundation after fellow trustees refused to present an award to former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney for fear that a future President Trump would retaliate by taking away the foundation’s tax-exempt status. “The historical irony was completely lost on you (the trustees),” Kennerly wrote. “Gerald Ford became president, in part, because Richard Nixon had ordered the development of an enemies list and demanded his underlings use the IRS against those listed. That’s exactly what the executive committee fears will happen if there’s a second coming of Donald Trump.”
Republican donors seem to be getting the message. The Washington Post cites the example of megadonor Nelson Peltz, who, the day after the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, expressed regret for voting for Trump in 2020. That was then. This is now: Last month, Peltz had breakfast with Trump and other billionaires. After, Peltz said he would “probably” vote for Trump. Other high rollers are falling in line as well, rediscovering their affection for the former president even as he promises to pardon January 6 insurrectionists.
Trump pledges to turn the federal bureaucracy into an instrument to punish those who oppose him. He will use the Justice Department to investigate former allies who are now critical of his administration, including his former chief of staff, John Kelly, former attorney general, William Barr, and Mark Milley, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The former president vows to “appoint a special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.”
Trump, after all, has twice told Americans that he wants “to be a dictator for one day.” Take that day metaphorically to equal four years — or indefinitely: He could elect to suspend elections. If reelected president, Trump will use his second term to exact vengeance on anyone he thinks has wronged him. That may not be the American way, which, if Trump even knows that, he chooses to ignore.
Republicans’ willing subservience to Trump is infuriating, scary, and sad. I have written before about the infuriating and the scary, but the sad part is, it seems, their willingness to overlook how easily and quickly Trump drops even those who support him! As French statesman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord famously said of the Bourbon monarchs: “They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.”
Posted April 16, 2024