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(Trends Wide) — Donald Trump’s call for the termination of the Constitution is his most extreme anti-democratic statement yet and appears to ignore the sentiments of voters who rejected voter deniers in the midterm elections.
It may also reflect desperation on the part of the former president to generate controversy and anger among his main supporters to inject some energy into a hitherto lackluster 2024 White House bid.
Trump’s comments on his Truth Social network, which should be easy for anyone to condemn, expose the well-known moral timidity of mainstream Republicans who will not disown the former president. But his latest tirade also plays into the arguments of some Republicans who now say it’s time to put Trump’s fixation on the 2020 election behind them.
And while it’s too soon to write off his chances in the race for the 2024 GOP nomination, Trump’s behavior since announcing his third presidential bid also suggests that his never-ending quest to shock and energize his base now means going too far. to the right to end up in the extremist fringe and almost in a parody of himself. In the short time that he has been a candidate, he has voiced his support for the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and dined with a white nationalist who denies the Holocaust.
Gabriel Sterling, director of operations for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, chuckled in disbelief at Trump’s claim to the Constitution when Trends Wide’s Pam Brown described it on Saturday.
“It is ridiculous, it is crazy, to suspend the Constitution. Come on man, really?” said Sterling, a Republican who helped oversee the Georgia election in 2020, when President Joe Biden won the state. “I think more and more Republicans, Americans are saying, ‘Okay , I’m done with this now, I’m going to move on to the next thing.’”
Trump’s tirade may be a sign of a faltering campaign heading into 2024
The more immediate question raised by the latest Trump controversy is what it says about a presidential campaign that has been swallowed up by one far-right authoritarian sideshow after another.
Far from going to the nation’s rural areas, defending the economy, health care and immigration, or outlining an agenda for the future, Trump has provided solace to fanatics and insurgents.
He hosted Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago last month, at a time when the rapper now known as Ye is in the midst of a vile streak of anti-Semitism and praise for Adolf Hitler. Far-right Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes was also at that dinner. Trump claimed that he did not know who Fuentes was, but the former president has yet to criticize his ideology. Last week, Trump, in a fundraising video, praised the mob that stormed the Capitol in the worst attack on American democracy in modern times, again promoting violence as an acceptable response to political grievances.
His attack on the Constitution on social media appears to be proving the point of the House select committee on January 6, which has cast it as a clear and present danger to American democracy and met Friday to consider criminal referrals to Department of Justice.
Wyoming Republican Party Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, tweeted Sunday: “No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.” Trump’s latest wild post on social media could even deepen his legal exposure as the Justice Department seeks evidence of his thinking as it investigates his conduct before the attack on the Capitol.
Trump’s renewed bid for authoritarianism also follows a time when much of the country, at least in crucial swing states, rejected his 2020 election denialist and anti-democratic chaos candidates he chose for the midterms, with a final test this Tuesday in the Georgia Senate. This seems to make it even more unlikely that the former president, even if he wins the Republican nomination, is the kind of candidate he could win among the broader national electorate. After all, his message failed in two consecutive elections in 2020 and 2022. And even in the wilder confines of the Republican Party, which Trump has dominated since 2015, a call to simply rip up the Constitution might seem like overkill, and reflect the growing distancing from the reality of the former president.
Why Trump’s words are dangerous
It could be argued that the prudent response to Trump’s latest radical rhetoric might be to ignore it along with his hype.
But even if his idea to squash the Constitution seems far-fetched, his behavior should be taken seriously because of its potential future consequences.
That’s because Trump remains an extraordinarily influential force in the Republican Party. His acolytes wield inordinate power in the new House majority that he will assume in January, and they plan to use it as a political weapon to promote his restoration to the White House. Republican Party leader Kevin McCarthy is placating this group in an increasingly troubled campaign for House speaker. The California Republican also shielded Trump last week from criticism of the Fuentes dinner, saying that while that person had no place in the party, Trump had convicted him four times, a false claim.
Also, in an electoral sense, the theory that Republican voters may be willing to leave Trump behind and find a candidate who reflects “America First” populism but doesn’t dine with anti-Semites has yet to be proven. Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen are still widely accepted among Republican voters; only 24% of whom believe Biden legitimately won in 2020, according to midterm exit polls.
And a GOP primary that includes multiple candidates competing with Trump for the presidential nomination could once again fragment the vote against the former president and allow him to emerge on top of a winner-take-all delegate race. a vote that would put a would-be authoritarian who has already tried to dismantle the American system of democracy one step away from returning to power.
Ignoring or minimizing public evidence of extremism and incitement only allows it to become normalized. There is already evidence that the former president’s rhetoric can lead to violence, after he told his supporters on January 6 to “fight like crazy” to save the country from him. And the rhetoric of people like West and Fuentes, with whom Trump has associated himself, risks normalizing hateful forces in society that will grow if not challenged. After all, Fuentes has appeared with Republican lawmakers like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an increasingly influential voice in the House Republican conference.
Years of the twice-impeached former president crushing norms and embracing extremists never convinced the party to purge him or his views. If it weren’t for principled conservative Republicans like Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Trump’s effort to steal the election might have worked in 2020.
Working through an intense session of the outgoing Congress, Republican lawmakers will, for the umpteenth time, be asked this week about the tyrannical attitudes of their party’s leading presidential candidate.
A newly elected Republican, Michael Lawler, who won a Democratic-held House seat critical to the slim Republican majority, defended the Constitution on Trends Wide’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
“The Constitution is established for a reason, to protect the rights of all Americans. And I certainly don’t condone that language or that sentiment,” Lawler told Jake Tapper. “I think the former president would do well to focus on the future if he’s going to run for president again.”
Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said he “vehemently” disagreed with Trump’s statement, saying his dinner with West and Fuentes was “appalling” and that voters would take both incidents into account.
But a fellow Republican from Ohio, Rep. David Joyce, displayed the characteristic reluctance of his party members to confront a former president who remains wildly popular with his base. Regarding the threat to the Constitution, Joyce said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”: “You know he says a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean it’s ever going to happen,” adding that it was important to separate “the fact of fantasy”.
Joyce did not directly condemn Trump’s rhetoric, saying she would support whoever the GOP nominates in 2024. The fact that Republicans are open to a possible president, who would be called upon to swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, but who has already called for its termination, speaks volumes about how much the Republican Party is still in Trump’s shadow.
