The majority of American voters have always opposed extremism.
Back in the 1960s, fears of a radical left helped propel Richard Nixon to the White House. Liberals had no chance at holding political power once Eisenhower Republicans saw violence erupt at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
As America reacted to Tuesday’s historic arraignment of former President Donald Trump, many Republicans defended Trump by calling the criminal charges against him a witch hunt.
“We’re the party of peace,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said outside the district attorney’s office in New York. “Democrats are communists.”
The GOP’s strategy appears to be rooted in trying to convince moderate and independent voters that Democrats are more extreme. Greene defended calling Democrats pedophiles during an appearance Sunday on “60 Minutes.”
“They support grooming children,” Greene told anchor Lesley Stahl.
“They are not pedophiles,” Stahl replied. “Why would you say that?”
Why? Because the Republican Party’s only response to extremism in its ranks today is to hope that a confused public believes them when they call Democrats pedophiles. This is considered normal political discourse in 2023.
Trump is not only the first former occupant of the Oval Office to appear before a judge on criminal charges. He’s also the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
That sets up a scenario where Trump could simultaneously appear in court during a criminal trial while campaigning for president. This is surreal because no one in their wildest dreams ever imagined that the public would elevate a criminal defendant to presidential nominee of a major political party.
One would think Republican leaders would have long ago rejected a person of such deplorable character as Trump. But Republicans are as spineless as the 140,000 other species of invertebrates found in the United States.
Obviously, something has gone very wrong for us to end up at this point. It appears to be reluctance by GOP leadership to denounce Trump’s outrageous conduct.
I reached out to local GOP leaders Tuesday and sought their reactions to the day’s unprecedented developments. I asked whether they supported Trump for their party’s presidential nomination in 2024 and whether they would support Trump if he is the Republican nominee for president.
I posed the questions to Sean Morrison of Palos Park, a Cook County Board member and chair of the Cook County Republican Party, and state Rep. Tim Ozinga of Mokena, chair of the Will County Republican Central Committee. Neither offered an immediate response.
I also posed the questions to Don Tracy, who chairs the Illinois Republican Party. I also checked social media feeds for Republican leaders and organizations. I saw no mention of Trump, but a state GOP post urged followers to vote on Tuesday.
“I dream of a day where the GOP can give us ‘responsible leaders,'” someone wrote in the comments. “Until the GOP starts condemning their own irresponsible leaders and starts protecting American Democracy, there is absolutely no sense in voting for the GOP, regardless of the individual.”
Trump and other Republicans are seizing the moment of the former president’s criminal indictment to ask supporters for money, the writer noted.
“Until this disgusting narrative ends, the GOP will never again get my vote,” the person wrote on the Illinois GOP’s social media post.
Is this the end of the Republican Party? Clearly there is no longer any room in the party for patriots like former Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois or Liz Cheney of Wyoming. The top requirement for membership in today’s GOP is unquestioning loyalty and willingness to say the naked emperor’s clothes are beautiful.
The price of admission to call oneself a Republican nowadays is an oath of fealty to a criminal defendant. Tuesday’s was the first, but Trump is expected to face more criminal indictments.
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There’s the grand jury in Georgia investigating whether Trump committed crimes by interfering with that state’s 2020 presidential election. A special counsel appointed by the Department of Justice is investigating whether Trump broke the law by taking classified documents with him to his Florida estate and lying about it.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all the cases.
For now, it appears the 25% of the American electorate that identifies as Republican has no choice but to ride the Trump train. They may be silent at the moment due to reluctance to defend a suspected criminal. But few appear brave enough to stand on principle and denounce a lifelong con artist. Instead, many Republican leaders have attacked the rule of law.
Meanwhile, 31% of Americans identify as Democratic and 41% consider themselves independents, according to Gallup. They’re not afraid to say the emperor has no clothes. Despite mainstream media’s best efforts to give both sides equal treatment, most American voters are sick of Trump. Yet he remains the front-runner for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination.
Trump’s criminal arraignment creates quite the quandary for GOP leadership. In the past, like when Nixon resigned the White House due to the Watergate scandal, Republican moderates would insist on expelling extremists from their ranks.
By defending Trump instead of denouncing him, today’s GOP leadership embraces extremism. At the very least, party leaders could have refrained from attacking prosecutors until they knew what evidence authorities had gathered.
“Alvin Bragg has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy posted Thursday on social media about the New York district attorney. “He weaponized our sacred system of justice against President Donald Trump.”
It’s understandable why a weak party leader would make such a statement. It’s also clear that’s going to be a tough political message to sell to voters. While Trump was preparing to be fingerprinted and having his mug shot taken, President Joe Biden was in Minnesota talking about jobs, clean energy and the economy.
It’s obvious that the smart thing, politically, for Republicans to do at this point would be to bail on Trump. Privately many GOP leaders would likely admit they would like nothing better than to throw Trump under his campaign bus.
But they can’t, because Trump remains the most popular candidate among the base of GOP voters. GOP leadership does not care that their base is populated with people who think Democrats are holding children as sex slaves in nonexistent basements of pizza parlors. The customer is always right.
The Republican Party built its political operation on hate and division and it was inevitable that someone like Trump would beat all other contenders to become its leader.
Now the party is stuck with a criminal defendant as its likely presidential nominee. Republicans can’t win with Trump and they can’t win without him. If he’s not the GOP nominee he’ll run as a third party independent because his best hope to avoid prison is to win the White House. He will not stop trying until he exhausts every possible option.
At this point the most important unanswered questions are for local, state and national Republican Party leaders. Do they support Trump as their party’s 2024 presidential nominee, and will they support him for president if he wins the GOP nomination?
Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.