By
Charles C. W. Cooke
Wednesday,
January 04, 2023
The 2024
Republican presidential primaries may be in their infancy, but one theme has
already emerged: That, if Ron DeSantis — or, indeed, if anyone whom Donald
Trump has ever endorsed, praised, or helped — elects to enter the race, he will
be exhibiting an unforgiveable “disloyalty.”
Rehearsing
this line in a recent interview, Laura Loomer told NBC’s
Marc Caputo that
“Governor DeSantis owes his entire political career to Trump and he’s going to
look like an ingrate if he runs against him.” Among those who will countenance
no other candidate besides Donald Trump, Loomer’s approach has become de
rigueur. For such people, the truth of the claim that Trump is the best
option on offer is simply assumed — which, in turn, makes any other figure who
might plausibly enter the fray inherently devious. Such as it is, the logic
runs a little like this: Because Donald Trump personifies MAGA and MAGA is the
ideal political approach for the United States, those who don’t want Trump are
rejecting the ideal political approach for the United States. Sure, Governors
DeSantis and Abbott and Youngkin might make solid nominees “one day.” But not
now — not while Trump aspires to a second term. The mere thought is perfidious,
treacherous, unfaithful — even seditious.
Which,
of course, is a spectacularly kooky way of looking at our constitutional system
— one that is better suited to the vagaries of a medieval court than to the
undulations of a free republic. In a nation such as this, politics ought, by
definition, to be indifferent and transactional. Here, the deal is simple:
Politicians wish to be given power, and voters may grant or withhold from them
that power depending on the circumstances. Other politicians may also endorse,
help, or distance themselves from their colleagues as they see fit. There is no
room in America for blood-oaths or ornate ceremonies, replete with swords and
bows and sycophantic vows to “my liege.” And there is certainly no reason that
anyone should be expected to declare fealty to a given politician and then stay
sedulously loyal irrespective of that politician’s conduct. That isn’t
democracy; it’s absolutism.
Nobody
who remains undecided owes Donald Trump anything beyond a fair hearing. If, on
balance, Republican primary voters consider Trump to be the best candidate to
lead them into 2024, they should choose him. If, like me, they consider him
both to have disqualified himself from consideration and to be a
weak candidate, they should select somebody else. But, contrary to the peculiar
claims of totalitarians on both sides of the aisle, a decision to reject Trump
in 2024 would not be a rejection of everything that he did as president. It
would simply be a circumspect judgment on the best course to take within a
political context that has changed since Trump last held power. Politicians in
our system are temporary employees of the people. To support them is not to
endorse everything they believe, and to oppose them is not to offer up a
wholesale rejection of their wares. They are vassals, bondmen, valets.
They are subordinate, and they are dispensable.
Donald
Trump knows this all too well, as his recent behavior has shown. Where
once he declared
himself to be
the “most pro-life president in America history,” now he speaks of
pro-lifers as
if they were an irritant and a drag on the GOP’s electoral prospects. Trump has
adopted a similarly see-sawing approach toward Ron DeSantis, whom he once
praised as “a
true FIGHTER” who “would make a GREAT Governor of Florida,” but whom he now
derides as “Ron DeSanctimonious,” and whose character he recently
threatened to
assassinate should they face off in 2024.
Which is
fine. In politics, things change. Views change. Lawmakers change. Alliances
change. Times change, too. Knights at a roundtable make for a fun children’s
story, but they’re a lousy model for running a constitutional republic. “Be
thou the king, and we will work thy will”? Not in America, sonny.
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