Chait: This time the GOP pushback on Trump is different

AP Photo/Jill Colvin

I often think Jonathan Chait has some good insights into topics that others on the left either miss or intentionally ignore. That’s especially true of his criticism of woke ideology. On the other hand, he is a progressive so his writing is often suffused with a kind of smug condescension toward the right that is unnecessary and off-putting. And that’s sort of the mix we get today in a column about the right’s pushback to Trump’s attacks on Gov. DeSantis and Gov. Youngkin. In Chait’s view, there have always been misgivings about Trump but for much of that time Republicans had nowhere else to go:

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…the Murdoch-owned media, and many other legacy conservative-media outlets, like National Review, have never fully supported Trump. They defended him against Democrats while wishing the party would nominate somebody else. This has meant, in other words, that they would criticize some of his excesses, even while insisting the Democrats were worse. During moments when Republicans had the opportunity to wrest leadership of the party from his hands, like during the 2016 primary campaign and in the days after January 6, they would even savage him. But when his leadership of the party went unchallenged, they would mute their criticism and fall dutifully in line.

This pattern has led to an easy assumption that whatever misgivings Republicans express now will come to nothing. “We have heard this tune many times before,” Dan Drezner says, sighing. “It’s nice to hope that this time it’ll take,” writes the Bulwark, “But we’ve all seen this movie before. Many, many, many times before.”…

In 2016, remaining anti-Trump meant supporting Hillary Clinton’s election, and in 2021, it meant accepting the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s presidency. Now, however, it means standing with DeSantis.

Here I’d take some issue with Chait’s framing but I think he’s generally on track. If the choice was Trump or Hillary, people on the right were going to choose Trump (or the party despite Trump) or neither. They weren’t going to choose Hillary. Similarly, if the choice was between Trump and Biden, same result. There were a lot of us, myself included, who voted for Trump but who did not like seeing cops beat up by a mob on Jan. 6 and who did not believe the election was stolen. But getting back to the point, 2024 is no longer a choice between Trump and the next Democratic candidate, whoever that is. Now there’s an alternative who isn’t a Democrat.

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And before moving on, let’s note that Democrats have been in this position before and for a lot longer than 6 years. Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 while surrounded by allegations about his womanizing. During his presidency he was credibly accused of having sex with an intern in the White House, groping a supporter in the White House and having raped a woman years earlier. The left almost uniformly came to his defense and mostly continued to give him a pass as his wife later moved through a serious of high profile jobs (Senator and Sec. of State). Finally, with the arrival of #MeToo some on the left began to reevaluate support for Clinton. Not coincidentally, this happened after Hillary lost her bid for the White House and the Clinton’s were effectively at the end of their careers. My point is, partisans are often willing to put up with a lot while there’s some advantage to be had or when there’s no other choice. Democrats know this.

Chait goes on to note that the complaints about Trump’s behavior aren’t just coming from moderates and never Trump sympathizers, they’re coming from the right.

“Republican loyalty to the unpredictable Trump could fade,” which “will empower DeSantis,” writes the arch-right-winger Victor Davis Hanson, author of a book called The Case for Trump. Mike Cernovich, who became famous for promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, groused, “The MAGA slop that’s going out is that the Trump-endorsed McConnell, McCarthy, and Graham are somehow at fault for why Trump-backed candidates underperformed. It’s never Trump’s fault,” and added, “​​DeSantis needs to declare today.” Anti-vaxxer Candace Owens declared, “Trump needs to take a good look in the mirror … and he needs to exercise a tiny bit more humility when he gets something wrong.” Trump’s attacks against DeSantis are receiving almost no backup on the right whatsoever.

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Again, Chait is noting the phenomenon correctly while a lot of Bulwark types are not (It’s something that David wrote about earlier today), but he’s is missing the reasons or at least framing them in an unflattering light. What’s actually going on, I think, is that in the past Trump has demonstrated a showman’s gift for labeling and diminishing his rivals in both parties. Often his attacks were crude but effective and sometimes darkly amusing. To put it in a way that progressives might get, Trump was good at “othering” people including people in his own party who got in his way.

But “Ron DeSantimonious” just doesn’t work. First, it doesn’t connect to any real perception of DeSantis by most people on the right. Second, most people on the right see DeSantis as part of their tribe. He’s not a Mitt Romney Republican. He’s not Jeb Bush. He’s someone who seems to get some of the cultural concerns of the base. So it’s pretty hard to paint him as an outsider.

The attack on Gov. Younkin feels even more disconnected from reality. Is he secretly Chinese? I don’t get it. The punches don’t connect and so what comes through is a kind of desperation on Trump’s part. And as every teenage boy has learned, desperation is not attractive.

It doesn’t help that Trump is leveling these attacks right after DeSantis had a huge night in Florida. It was the only bright spot in a pretty disappointing night overall for Republicans. A lot of people who voted for Trump and some who still support him are scratching their heads wondering how attacking DeSantis at this moment makes any sense, except as a salve to Trump’s ego. And some people, including people who’ve long defended Trump, have just had enough.

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Someone pointed out that Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears said this yesterday on Fox: “It is time to move on.”

So maybe Trump’s attack was a counterpunch in some sense (Sears said it not Youngkin) but, again, what does it mean? The punch doesn’t connect to anything.

Getting back to Chait, he arrives at the right conclusion despite the most dismissive possible take on people’s reasons:

Again, none of this is to say DeSantis will definitely beat Trump or even that he will even try…But the assumption Trump will roll over him like he rolled over Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz assumes history will automatically repeat itself. Sometimes, things change.

Of course not everyone is going to agree with that change or go along with it, but I do think many in the GOP now see a real alternative and that does make a difference.

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