Republicans Defend Trump at Their Own Risk

As a former Republican years ago at a time that nowadays seems to have also been in a galaxy far, far away, I still find in mind numbing that the vast majority of Republicans seeming continue to rally to Donald Trump's standard despite readily available objective facts that would cause sane people to run from the man.  Those facts confirm Trump is a mentally ill (that is the opinion of my friend a former Virginia governor who is a neurologist) pathological liar with no moral compass whatsoever who cares for absolutely no one but himself and his extremely fragile ego and who is only too willing to destroy the country to satiate his ego. But then I remember the takeover of the Republican base by the Christofascists and white supremacists (the two groups are most commonly one and the same) who Trump embraced with open arms and the rise of amoral Republican elected officials - think Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, etc. - who like Trump care only about their own perceived benefit and increased power and will never stand for the truth if it upsets the ever more delusional party base.  A conservative columnist in the Washington Post warns that standing by Trump will undermine the party itself.  Here are excerpts:

Republican leaders rushed to defend Donald Trump after a Georgia grand jury levied charges against the former president for his scheme to interfere in the state’s 2020 presidential election. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy described the indictment as a “desperate sham.” Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said it was a “WITCH HUNT” and that Trump “did nothing wrong.”

That reaction is unsurprising, but it’s troubling nonetheless. Yes, the legal theories deployed against Trump might be questionable. And yes, there is no doubt that Trump’s prosecution is politically motivated. (That is, unfortunately, a fact of life.) But Republicans minimize Trump’s awful scheme to overturn his defeat at their own risk.

The indictment lists in excruciating detail how Trump and his band worked to undermine the election. The effort was at times shambolic and comical (remember what looked like hair dye dripping down Rudy Giuliani’s face at a news conference?), but nevertheless, it was a serious plot to ensure Trump stayed in the Oval Office against the voters’ will.

Trump’s defenders contend the Georgia indictment is an attempt to criminalize the former president’s political speech. . . . But this ignores the sheer audacity of Trump’s acts and willful ignorance of the facts. Gore had reason to believe that an honest recounting of the votes might award him Florida’s electoral votes. And Clinton did not spend months manufacturing phony controversies in multiple states to provide then-Vice President Joe Biden a pretext to reject electoral votes on the House floor. Trump did, even though he had no rational reason to think he was the fair winner of the election.

Trump flagrantly disregarded the truth from the moment the polls closed. He said, for example, that Milwaukee’s release of its absentee ballots on the morning after Election Day was proof those votes were fraudulent. But, as it was widely reported at the time, those votes would be released in the early hours because Wisconsin law did not allow election officials to begin processing mail ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day. Facts simply didn’t matter to Trump and his squad.

[T]he prosecution should spend considerable time at trial documenting the rampant disregard for the facts that Trump and his co-conspirators consistently displayed. This wasn’t a case of hardball politics as usual; it was an unusual case of a desperate man pulling every lever of power he could to stay in office despite the facts and the law. Even if doing so does not result in conviction, it would do a service for the public.

The Senate’s Watergate hearings helped sway public opinion against President Richard M. Nixon because they patiently and prudently unraveled his defenses. . . . That could happen again during Trump’s trial. Many Republican voters who back Trump believe his false claims of election fraud, but no one with the resources that Trump’s prosecutors have has ever attempted to systematically undermine those claims.

Prosecutors have a chance to correct that. If they do, do not be surprised if Trump’s GOP backing erodes as his own supporters realize he played them for chumps.

This is why the rush to defend Trump rests on such shaky ground. Ultimately, Republicans who do so are implicitly condoning his heinous behavior. That could prove to be politically unwise.

People will forgive partisan witch hunts if the facts prove the defendant is, in fact, a witch. Republicans should thus think twice before they risk drowning in Trump’s cauldron of deceit.