The Descent Into Darkness Never Stopped
Ryan Liu, Assistant Editor
Just minutes after voting to acquit Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that he believed the former President was “practically and morally responsible” for the January 6th insurrection. On first look, this seems par for the course for the level of Republican hypocrisy that McConnell has masterfully utilized in his long career atop Capitol Hill, but it’s important to note that this is not his finest job of threading a needle. Indeed, over the last few months he has repeatedly failed to do so, and his supervillain invincibility is faltering.
Mitch McConnell and his Republican Party are lost and leaderless.
The Democratic Party has long prided itself on it’s “big-tent” status: despite their different views, there’s room for both West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez under the nominal banner. Yet this ideological battle has caused deep-rooted internal schisms before. Who could forget the marathon 2020 Democratic primary, marked by fierce conflict between the party’s two chief factions?
In contrast, the Republicans have gotten off fairly easily in the past. So-called moderates like Susan Collins draw liberal ire for too often siding with her Republican colleagues, yet Senator Collins easily won reelection in 2020 on a bipartisan basis. Whereas Democratic factions coexist through a tenuously brokered peace, Republicans—the birthers, the evangelicals, the suburbanites, the monied business interests—all mesh together seamlessly.
Much of the explanation has been the simple matter of branding. The Republican message has been one of enduring opposition: the Democrats are what you dislike. The Republicans stand with you against the Democrats. Go Team Red. And indeed, this was an incredibly successful strategy. This unifying message won Republicans control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014, and catapulted them into a rare trifecta two years later in 2016.
But that was the overarching flaw of the Republican agenda. When your entire message is one of opposition, how do you handle being in control? Two largely ineffectual years later and they lost the House, another two and they lost the Senate and the Presidency as well.
With the cyclical nature of politics, institutional figures like McConnell seem eager to return to the Obama years: obstruction, defiance, and fierce opposition. But much has changed since 2008.
Mitch McConnell is forced to continue an uneasy alliance with Donald Trump, despite the latter's unpredictability.
Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla
For one, the most recent Republican to hold the presidency does not consider himself an ally of McConnell. Donald Trump has excoriated Republican figures like McConnell and House Republican Chair Liz Cheney for insufficient loyalty, and has threatened to start his own Patriot Party. One survey showed that 70% of Republicans would consider joining him.
This is Mitch McConnell’s personal nightmare.
Some pundits have stressed that this is largely a move by Trump to exert pressure on the Republican leadership, and while that’s likely true, it ignores the fact that Donald Trump continuing to hold such significant sway with the Republican Party is still incredibly dangerous.
In the immediate aftermath of the election last November, in the weeks and months where many Democrats could be found raucously celebrating on the streets or online, Republican officials were attempting to maintain a balanced tone. Outwardly, they projected disappointment or anger, with some going so far as to propagate the dangerous lie that the election had been stolen from Trump. Inwardly, however, most Republicans were very likely quite pleased: they had wrestled back control of the party. Granted, they would have to contend with a Democratic President for the next four years, but the recalcitrant ignoramus atop the party had been deposed. The Trump era was finally over, and now the Republican Party could move on.
The relationship between Lindsey Graham and Donald Trump has had its ups and downs, yet through it all the Senator has been stubbornly loyal.
Getty Images/Saul Loeb.
This was demonstrated in full force in the wake of the insurrection on January 6th. Hours later, a shaken Lindsey Graham rose to repudiate their claims, and insist that Biden was the lawfully elected President. Yet in passing, he let his feelings on other parties involved slip.
“Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey,” Graham admitted, harkening back to their history as rivals in the 2016 primary, and Graham’s initial obstinate refusal to back the demagogue before eventually becoming a boisterous ally. “I hate it to end this way.”
End. Graham was tacitly acknowledging what many of his colleagues were hoping for: that this would be the finale, the unceremonious denouement, to a tumultuous set of years not just to the country, but to Trump’s version of the Republican Party. Under Donald Trump’s leadership, the Republican Party metastasized upon the foundations of bigotry and incompetence laid out by past administrations. Graham, and others, hoped that there might arise a new leader, who could successfully steer the ship towards their preferred styles of governance.
Donald Trump exerts as much control over Republican politics as he did while in office.
Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla.
A doomed exercise. Trump might not be in the news as often anymore, owing primarily to his suspension from most social media platforms, but his pervasive influence has not disappeared since leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Look at the figures that Trump has exalted. New faces like Lauren Boebert or old favorites like Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan share this in common: all of them understand who their current boss is, and it’s the same as the old one. And who could forget Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has attracted national controversy for her unrepentant flirtation with conspiracy and devotion to all things Trumpism. It is no coincidence that Greene, like a certain rising star across the political aisle, has adopted an initialized moniker of MTG. She is a fittingly bizarro counterpart to New York’s AOC: hailed as a radical, adored by her certain factions on the internet, and undeniably the future of her party.
At his first nationally televised speech following Biden’s inauguration, Trump denounced rumors that he was interested in forming a Patriot’s Party as fake news. He claimed that such an idea was inherently foolish, as splitting votes would ensure the victory of the Democrats. What he neglected to mention is that such a split was not only unwise, it was altogether unnecessary. Why would Trump need to start a new Party that bowed completely to his will when the Republican Party had already fulfilled that purpose for four straight years?
It’s for this reason that the discourse surrounding a potential Republican schism is absurd. On what grounds would the party split? Their caucus solely consists of Trump’s pious adherents and disgruntled acquiescers. They are united in all but the tone they use to fawn over their great leader. Mitch McConnell made some performative attempt at breaking with Trump, yet when pushed he admitted that he would support him if he once again became the Republican nominee in 2024.
2024. 2024? Why are we even treating this like it’s a question? Why are there articles from pundits seriously bloviating over whether Josh Hawley or Nikki Haley or, god forbid, Ron DeSantis have a shred of a chance in 2024? The writing’s on the wall. Unless he’s interred, imprisoned, or inexplicably uninterested, Donald Trump is the 2024 nominee.
I know that those are not fun words to read. But they are necessary to write. Democrats have found themselves caught up in the lie Republicans have told themselves. The reality is that there is no forthcoming fracture, that there is no miraculous savior who will reinstate moderate conservatism. What you see is what you get, despite how tempting it might be to pretend not to see anything.
In May of 2016, when Trump secured electoral checkmate and essentially became the Republican nominee, the New York Times editorial board declared that “It’s Trump’s Party Now.” Despite all that’s happened in the last five years, that statement is still just as accurate in its pure simplicity. It’s Trump’s Party Now.