By Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Upon hearing the news that President Trump bowed to
pressure from congressional Republicans and reversed his decision to hold next
year’s G-7 summit at the Trump National Doral Miami, my immediate response was,
“Ah, what might have been.”
No, I’m not wistful about the missed opportunity for
taxpayers to throw a lifeline to Trump’s struggling resort. Rather, I’m a bit
misty-eyed about what the last three years might have looked like if
Republicans had shown this kind of spine all along.
There is an interesting consensus among the fiercely
pro-Trump and anti-Trump forces on the right. For simplicity let’s call them
Never Trumpers and Always Trumpers. Among the Never Trumper Republicans, it’s a
given that Trump is not only unfit for the job but unteachable. No amount of
on-the-job training will help.
For the Always Trumpers, the Trump they got was the Trump
they wanted all along. They’re like the person who deliberately set the bull
loose in the china shop. They look upon the shattered vases and listen to the
caterwauling of the shop owners and grin at a mission accomplished.
In other words, both camps agree that Trump can’t change.
They only quarrel over whether that is a good thing or bad.
Obviously, I am much closer to the Never Trumper position
on this. As I’ve written many times, I believe “character is destiny,” and
waiting for Trump to act “presidential” is like waiting for bears to stop using
our woodlands as toilets. Still, I don’t think that means Republicans should
take a hands-off approach.
Most of the Always Trumpers who dominate Fox prime time
and conservative talk radio voted for Trump not because they liked him but
because they disliked Hillary Clinton more (though don’t expect them to admit
that). And even though most conservatives won’t say this to pollsters, in
private conversations they will generally acknowledge that Trump is often his
own worst enemy.
Most conservatives try to focus on Trump’s results rather
than on the president himself. Republicans like his judicial appointments, tax
cuts, deregulation. And his support for culture-war priorities like the Second
Amendment and abortion have also kept conservatives on board. They simply tune
out the price the party and the country has paid for these “wins.”
But there’s a part of the equation that has been
forgotten. Thanks in part to the polarized climate, the near-banishment of
critical voices from pro-Trump media outlets, and the psychological need to
defend the leader of their “side,” conservatives forget that many of these wins
are the result of Trump’s hand having been forced in a political transaction.
Until Trump launched his hostile takeover of the GOP, he was pro-choice,
pro-gun-control, and utterly unconcerned about fidelity to the Constitution. He
became pro-life and pro–Second Amendment because that was the price of
widespread conservative support. He agreed to outsource his judicial
appointments to the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation precisely
because no one trusted his judgment.
Once elected, however, Trump used his ability to
influence his core supporters — who have outsize power in primaries to punish
GOP critics. By taking the scalps of politicians such as former GOP senator
Jeff Flake of Arizona, Trump also took the spines of countless others. As a result,
the GOP lost control of the House in 2018 and may be on the cusp of losing the
Senate and the presidency in 2020.
In a self-pitying tweet over the weekend, the president
said he reversed his decision on Doral because “the Hostile Media & their
Democrat Partners went CRAZY!”
This is a dangerous admission. Trump’s popularity with
Republicans is sustained by the fact he drives the Democrats and media “CRAZY!”
His supporters don’t want to hear about him caving to the demands of liberals.
But admitting the truth would have been worse; too many Republican legislators
couldn’t or wouldn’t defend his indefensible decision, and they let the
president know he’d gone too far. Normal presidents feel constrained by the
political needs of their party, and it turns out even Trump isn’t immune to
pressure from his team.
Of course, he feels more constrained by GOP congressional
support now that he’s staring down the barrel of impeachment. But if Trump had
cared more about reciprocating the loyalty he so often demands from the party,
he might not be looking at impeachment in the first place. And if the GOP had
worked harder at constraining Trump from the beginning, they might not be
looking at the implosion of their party.
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