When Maryland’s Presidential Primary takes place next month, Donald Trump will be leading the field already narrowed to three with the departure of Marco Rubio. Early on many people did not take his candidacy seriously and therefore did little to oppose him. Now, however, he is stirring anxiety and alarm among increasing numbers of the party faithful.
Some argue that Trump is not a true conservative. Others are appalled at his demagogic language and the increasing violence accompanying his public events.
Fact checking does not seem to lessen the enthusiasm of his supporters. Calls by prominent Republican leaders to reject Trump have not slowed his momentum and may, in fact, have been counterproductive.
When asked recently whom he would be supporting among the Republican candidates, Governor Larry Hogan ducked the question. Given his earlier enthusiastic backing for New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie, it’s hard for Hogan to claim that he doesn’t want to get involved in national politics.
At his press conference, he said he was “disgusted” at what is going on with both parties during this election. That, of course, is also evasive since there was never a chance that he would be supporting Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, much less Martin O’Malley.
A lose/lose proposition
Hogan’s challenge is hardly unique. What are moderate and conservative Republicans to do about Trump’s candidacy? Right now, it looks like a lose/lose proposition. Many analysts see a Republican electoral disaster looming if Trump is at the top of the ticket in the fall. It’s not hard to imagine the party losing control of the Senate and having a significant chunk of its large House majority eroded.
The other side of the equation doesn’t look much better. If the New York billionaire were to prevail in the General Election, the Republican Party as it has historically existed would be one of the losers. And, of even greater significance, this country would be a very scary place.
Can Larry Hogan and other leaders of the Republican Party prevent a Trump nomination? That’s not at all clear at this point. Those party leaders have been both timid and ineffectual in opposing Trump.
As many have argued, the failure of elected Republicans to follow through on promises made to their supporters during previous elections is one of the sources of Trump’s popularity.
A second factor, more disturbing, has been their tolerance, at times encouragement, of appeals to racial bias, demonizing of immigrants and calls for a return to a past that will never exist again. Their complicity in the “birther” movement and the assertions that Barack Obama is really Muslim have contributed directly to the Trump movement.
Political courage needed
Do reasonable Republicans—I include Hogan in that category even though I disagree with some of his policies—have the political courage and judgment to stand up to Trump? The first line of attack is to try to deny him the Republican nomination, although it might be already too late to succeed in that endeavor.
Moreover, that undertaking raises the risk that he might run as an independent if denied the party’s nomination. A second possibility is that his supporters, a considerable plurality of voters in Republican primaries, will sit out the election.
The original error of the Republican establishment was to hope it could keep Trump’s supporters without keeping him. That’s probably not going to happen.
Ultimately, the key to guaranteeing that Trump won’t become president is for Republicans who are uneasy with his candidacy to decide that it’s better to have one of the Democratic candidates as president than to run the risk of electing Trump.
That would require them to distance themselves from his fall campaign. Indeed, that may be the only way Republicans like Hogan can reclaim the party from the insurgency that Trump is riding.
National Republicans are already splitting on what to do. Both Ben Carson and Chris Christie have picked expedience over principle by endorsing Trump. Hogan has the opportunity to step out from Christie’s considerable shadow and stake a claim as a thoughtful leader in the party.
To do that, however, he will need to publicly oppose Trump even if that means risking a barrage of invective from the reality show star. Staying quiet at a time like this is not a sign of leadership. Trump appeals to the worst in people and has openly challenged some of the most important values of our constitutional system.
If Hogan remains silent, he will be making the same mistake that others in the party have made, wanting Trump’s supporters at any cost. Between now and the April 26 Primary, Hogan has a wonderful opportunity to show that he has the political courage to do what is right rather than what is expedient.
Fletcher Hall says
It will take real courage to determine how a Republican will vote in both the primary and general election this year. I have been a Republican for over 50 years. Never, have I experienced such anguish. Ouch, it really hurts.
Charlotte hawes says
Barrons Investment Weekly advises investors to hold their noses and vote for Hilary
Rudy Boleslav says
I do not see any dilemma. Mr. Trump will make a very good President. He is exactly what this country needs now.
Joe Diamond says
” . . . the Republican Party as it has historically existed would be one of the losers. And, of even greater significance, this country would be a very scary place.”
This portion from the middle of the piece is really the issue. What the Republican Party has done during the Obama administration is just wrong in my opinion. There is an arrogance of power there that needs to be ripped out. Members of Congress are tasked with arriving at ways to administer the country…as is the president. To reject ideas because of their source instead of their content is just wasting the huge budget that is given to make Congress very comfortable while they do their job in Washington. So the Republican Party deserves to be thrown out as voters find an alternative.
Sadly the alternative is The Donald. Even though the self important members of Congress are disruptive to the political system they will be removed (or supported) by the same system. Trump represents the one thing the United States of America was founded to avoid. We fought a revolution to free ourselves from a monarchy. Yet, after several generations of wealth accumulation, we get a new divine right monarch at the door. Because he is rich he thinks he is both wise and entitled to rule by edict. He has risen to threaten the established Republican leadership using wealth he has come to control.
He may not even be as stupid as he seems. But he tells stupid people what they want to hear. To the extent that he has shaken the system into action The Donald could be a good thing. For sure the results of his attempt to gain power have made us all re examine what we believe about politics in America.
Joe
Gren Whitman says
Nominated or not, either way, Trump is the GOP’s self-inflicted wound.
GOP senators are inflicting a second wound to their party by their refusal to consider Obama’s SCOTUS nomination, and thereby shirking their constitutional duty.
We’re witnessing the chickens coming home to roost.
James Nick says
I’m reminded of the story of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. After centuries, by the early 1900s, the Chinese dynastic system had finally run its course. But the Emperor didn’t know it. He and his sycophants had so thoroughly insulated themselves inside the Forbidden City that they had totally lost touch with the people and vice versa. The Emperor had become irrelevant – a leader without followers. The same could be said of the aristocratic world of post-WW I Britain as dramatized in the Downton Abbey TV series. The landed gentry persisted with their rigid formalities and caste system inside their walled castles while all around them social forces were rapidly demolishing what had essentially become a anachronistic fantasy world.
Similarly, the alarming and destructive rise of Donald Trump on the world stage indicates that the Republican leadership has apparently lost complete touch with their base. Trump is making a shambles of decades of carefully crafted conservative dogma that was, like Downton Abbey, just a fantasy in the minds of the conservative elite. Trump is thumbing his nose at just about every tenet of Republican orthodoxy. He doesn’t support the neocon’s call for global military intervention and continuous warfare, he correctly declared that Bush II had lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and blamed him for the 9/11 attacks. He defends Planned Parenthood, approves of the individual mandate in Obamacare, and would not cut Social Security and Medicare. He would act to suppress free-trade via onerous tariffs on companies who outsource jobs. And he has totally made a mockery of the GOP’s hypocritical outreach to minorities outlined in the so-called autopsy report prepared after Romney lost the presidential election in 2012.
Trump has pulled back the curtain to reveal the impossibility of enacting radical right-wing legislation that the GOP leaders have continuously promised with their lies and false conspiracy theories they have used for decades to manipulate their base. And the base loves him for that. They evidently don’t give a wit about the arcane points of GOP strategic machinations. All they want is to blow up Washington and hope that the pieces will fall back to earth in their favor. And Trump is their guy to do it.
Mr Boyd states that the original sin by the Republican establishment was to hope that the GOP could keep Trump supporters and get rid of Trump. I don’t think so. Trump is just the logical extrapolation of people like former VP candidate and dim bulb, Sarah Palin, and other attack dogs her ilk that the GOP has been fielding as candidates in recent history. Someone like Trump was totally predictable. If not Trump it would be Cruz who is equally unhinged and even more odious. If not Trump or Cruz it would be the empty suit, Rubio. Etc, etc…..
Anyone who has even a scintilla of political awareness has good reason to have pause about the state of politics in this country today. Our democracy depends on having two grown up, responsible, and civil parties that treat one another with respect and as equal partners. But when one party pursues a scorched-earth agenda to delegitimize a President fairly and twice elected by a majority of the American people, to conspire on the very day of his inauguration to nullify and obstruct virtually his entire agenda and appointments, and to enact voting laws intended to hobble all opposition, what else can be expected. Trump is the manifestation of the failure of adult GOP leadership. The mob now wants Barabbas.