While there remain some Republicans who continue to believe that Donald Trump is the future of their party, a larger percentage wish he’d disappear from the political scene so the GOP can move on and nominate younger candidates for the 2024 presidential race.
According to former Republican National Committee spokesperson Tim Miller, writing in The Bulwark, the GOP seems to be involved in a campaign of “humoring” Trump in the vain hope that he’ll vanish and never come back.
Of course, for a pathological narcissist like the Donald, that’s simply not going to happen, at least not anytime soon.
After Trump lost in 2020 to President Joe Biden (but before the horror of Jan. 6), Miller notes, he spoke with a senior official in the Republican Party who informed him:
“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change. He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”
Yeah, how bad could it be if we let Hannibal Lecter loose in public? He’ll leave once he gets full.
Then came Jan. 6, and Trump let the world know he wasn’t about to leave without causing bloodshed and mayhem in an effort to remain in office.
So where does that leave the GOP now? Whither Trump?
Miller explains that what’s old is new again:
“You see, back in November 2020, at least the SROs (Senior Republican Officials) thought that there was an expiration date on their cowardice. They figured that, come January 20, 2021, Trump would be gone and they would no longer have to humor him. Today the strategy has been modified only in the removal of an expected end date.”
That reminded Miller of a line from a book by Mark Liebovich, Thank You For Your Servitude:
“A former Republican congressman told me recently that the party’s only real plan for dealing with Trump in 2024 involved a darkly divine intervention. ‘We’re just waiting for him to die,’ he said.”
Miller dryly concludes:
“Instead they will soldier on. Playing the same big game of pretend with our democracy in the balance. After all, the downside for humoring him for just a little more time is likely to be felt by other people. And the upside of humoring? That accrues directly to the Republicans who want power. But don’t worry. Eventually they’ll be able to tell the truth. Probably. As long as he’s the one who croaks first.”
