The Three F's, Or why the Republican field won't attack Trump
The Future, Fondness and Fear.
Of course, from my perspective, it would be a smashing summer event f the Republicans campaigning for the party’s nomination collectively decimated the Trump campaign. Just obliterates it. Imagine if ten or so of them went feral against the former President, with their varying degrees of cruelty. Against his un-Christlike immorality; against his oily authoritarian lusts; against his reluctance to debate in a democracy; on the party’s need for a newer, sleeker model; on his creepy fascination with Putin and what a second Presidency would mean for the Ukraine.
There are, in fine, so many ways in which Trump could be eviscerated. Vis-a-vis: Me; to be sure. And the Republican Party is decidedly not me. I don’t get a say in that club leadership vote, which goes without saying.
Still, the notion that somehow Trump will be the ticket that exploded seems to me at best magical thinking and at worst some sort of strange repetition-compulsion among the field of candidates in the gladiatorial fundament. It all feels like 2016, but with a different cast of Republicans splitting the roughly 6o percent of the party’s not explicitly pro-Trump vote left over. And — quick math — what is 60 divided by a dozen? Answer: Not the party nominee!
But even in 2016, the candidates — though visibly astonished at the novelty of his paleo-authoritarian phenomenon — went on the offensive. It didn’t work, of course, but the alternative, of waiting for some deux ex machina to clear Trumpism off the American political landscape, would have been even less successful.
When one realizes that with each legal knot 45 finds himself entangled in, his base remains unwavering, it seems to me the right play is to compare and contrast. In other words: attack. And kudos here to Chris Christie, who is going absolutely nowhere. But God bless him nonetheless. For actually running a serious campaign for President. For trying. His motives are not so pure; but he is at least making an attempt to win by beating the frontrunner. You can’t beat Trump without going through him. Or, as Christie says, channeling his inner Ric Flair, you can’t be the man unless you beat the man. He — and the unfortunate Asa Hutchinson — are the only ones campaigning as grown-ups.
To paraphrase former Vice President Mike Pence (stuck with only 9% very favorable ratings among Evangelicals), the Trump base finds solace in his “broad shoulders.” It boggles the imagination how this is so, but here we are. In the hour of exigency in the invisible primary. And there seem to be three reasons — the Three Fs, as I call them — why the members of the Republican field appear so reluctant to decimate Trump: The Future, Fondness and Fear.
The Future
Trump is the frontrunner. He is also a former President. He is charismatic in a way that none of the other candidates are and he has a baseline of 37 percent within the Republican party. In other words, its Trump’s nomination to lose. Unless a lot of candidates dismount (unlikely). And the other candidates have spent their entire lives leading up to this point. They have climbed and crawled their way to their respective positions of the Republican side of the American political ladder. But to their surprise, after 2015, the Republican party essentially became Trumpist and no longer “conservatism,” or “chamber of commerce,” or even, “defense hawks.”
Running for the highest office in the land is always a gamble. Enduring enemies will probably be made. But it doesn’t have to be The End. If, say, Nikki Haley loses, it doesn’t have to be the end of her political career (you see where I am going with this?). It could be, if she plays her cards right, the Vice Presidency. Or — dare to dream? — Secretary of State. Instead of it being “The End,” it is, rather, a step closer to the end goal of the Presidency. Or, if not, “the Presidency,” then maybe a life of six-figure speaking fees and flying on corporate jets between Board of Director’s meetings. Or, as in the cases of Colin Powell and William Cohen, Cabinet positions as well as Boards of Director meetings. In other words: “the future.” The future depends on not ruffling too many feathers, you see. Look at former Senator Jeff Flake. Why expend all those calories to be an “achiever” if you end up like that? (Averted Gaze)
No candidate wants to envision a future without them at the top. And yet only one person can be President at any one time; only a select few attain the office in a generation. Trump, with a double-barreled stranglehold over the party, has proven himself vicious, un-Christian and unforgiving against perceived enemies. And he is not moving from his perch. Who, then, has the courage and the skill to dislodge him? And what would be the consequences for one’s FUTURE? You can imagine how difficult it is to envision a lucrative future in the Republican overclass after having gone nuclear against Trump during the campaign.
Fondness
It is hard to imagine people being fond of someone as steeped in moral perversity as is Trump. He had unprotected sex four months after his wife, Melania, gave birth to his child. And yet, oddly enough, he demands unquestioned loyalty from his allies while giving little if any of it back. Trump’s BFF Rudy Giuliani, for example, all but destroyed his legal career for the former President. And all he wanted in return was Foggy Bottom — or, at least, a sweet Ambassadorship in which he could indulge his fantasies of being the next Henry Kissinger. But what he got for decades worth of unquestioned loyalty was to do Trump’s dirty work in Ukraine. While, ultimately, he couldn’t even score a pardon.
But let’s circle back to the issue of “fondness.”
As hard as it is to believe, Trump is fondly regarded among Republicans. Not all, mind you, but enough. More than a third. Especially in a very divided field. It is why so many candidates are tripping over themselves to pre-pardon Trump. Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project refers to the FONDNESS conundrum among the 60 percent of Republicans that would rather have another candidate other than Trump as “trying to take the car keys away from grandpa.” That sounds about right.
Roughly two-thirds of the party would rather move on, but they do not want to move on in such a way in which grandpa’s ego is bruised. Because grandpa was once a virile man with outsized lusts. They respect grandpa and all the great fun they had at his rallies back in ‘16 (or watching them on CNN). Grandpa, in his prime, told great dehumanizing stories about immigrants. He created a permission-structure to hate.
The 2024 candidates don’t want to humiliate grandpa and thus suffer the wrath of his family, a lot of whom are very heavily armed. Which leads us to …
Trump incites FEAR in Republicans. Fear is the most powerful weapon in his political toolbox. It is employed as a last resort, as on January 6th. He also has a fascination with threats to physical violence that is alarming, even more alarming in that he was once a high government official with the nuclear codes. This is largely because he has no shame. And he cannot, ever, be seen as “a loser.” Winning, always, is his brand. He not only goes after the wives and families of his opponents, he relishes in it, knowing that he can go in an argument, where no civilized human being will go.
Trump turns off and on the spigot of potential violence against his political opponents at will. But, curiously enough, it is a sign that he is indeed losing. Bess Levin writes of DA Alvin Bragg for Vanity Fair:
In the weeks leading up to his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, Donald Trump regularly and viciously attacked Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor leading the investigation into his hush money deals. Because these (often racist) attacks led to at least one death threat—and perhaps because he’s all too aware of Trump’s penchant for inciting “death and destruction”—Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing the case, warned on Tuesday that the ex-president should “refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence and civil unrest.” Which Trump being Trump, i.e. a dangerous blowhard, promptly proceeded to ignore.
Tish James also has received death threats. Liz Cheney had to hire security when she crossed Trump. Molly Jong-Fast had to report the death threats she was getting to the FBI after penning an article entitled “Deprogramming Your Relatives This Thanksgiving” in 2021.
Lethal threats are a primal fear. And the weaponization of intimidation and fear are more the policies of strongmen than of Presidents. But if the Republican field continues, out of fondness, the future and FEAR, to hold Trump accountable, then the potential strongman will get the party nomination with naught else to stop him other than Tim Scott’s smile. Thus leaving a strongman one step closer to the Presidency.
“It’s retrograde, sure, but it is not delightful. It is what makes The Idol bad.” (Sophie Frances Kemp/LARB)
“News of the 46,000-year old worm happened to coincide with a reminder, from the U.S. Senate, that our gerontocracy teeters on the cryptobiotic, existing in a state between life and death.” (Nina Burleigh/American Political Freakshow)
“Yet, while I retain affection for Israel, I often feel as if I do not recognize what it has become. This is a familiar feeling for me, since I am similarly befuddled by modern America: How did we turn into a land of book banners and covid deniers?” (Max Boot/WashPo)