This is the core problem: if you once support Trump for reasons of political advantage, you’re his for life. There’s no way to go back without shredding your career and your reputation. And a lot of Republicans have clearly looked around and said “Well, I’m in it now, I might as well go all the way.”
I believe that at some level Trump understands this, which is why the public acts of obeisance that he demands – i.e. endorsing his pathetic Big Lie – will tend to become more and more extreme. The very absurdity of his demands binds his subjects more firmly under his control. I don’t think he’s a smart man in most senses in which we use the word, but he has the abuser’s instinct both for discovering abuseable victims and for keeping them under control.
His method also neutralizes backsliders. If Kevin McCarthy or Lindsay Graham were to suddenly discover a spine and say “You know what? This guy is bad news for America, and we have no business supporting him,” then Trump can just say “Well, you’re a flip-flopping hypocrite, why should anyone listen to you?” Even if any of them wanted to take a moral stand, it would have no effect.
Perhaps if a group of Republicans – and here I’m not talking the ‘hundred retired generals’ or ‘sixty Republican postal inspectors’ who periodically pop up in the liberal media to decry the evils of Trumpism, but actual current household names – all took a stand together, it could turn the tide. But while many of them probably want to do it, no one wants to be the first.
There’s also the legitimate fear that if you speak out against Trump, you’ll catch a bullet from one of his genuinely insane fans. That’s a new factor in American politics, and while I don’t believe it’s the key factor at work, it certainly features in their calculations. Follow the Maximum Leader, or else.
Anyway, when America finishes as a fascist state – I give it about eight years, plus or minus – it’ll be because weak and greedy men thought they could grab a little power and then discovered too late that Donald Trump owned them body and soul.
