“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he would "absolutely" support Donald Trump if he's the 2024 GOP nominee for president, two weeks after declaring former President Trump "practically and morally responsible for provoking the events" of January 6. The Kentucky Republican said he will support any Republican who wins the nomination, even if that's Mr. Trump.”
– CBS News, February 25, 2021
"The nominee of the party? Absolutely," McConnell said on Fox News when asked if he would support Mr. Trump if he became the nominee.
To Democrats and others who believe Trump should be barred from holding future office, this hypocritical support comes as no surprise. Republicans are willing to accept or even defend the “Stop the Steal” insurrection and embrace a version of events on January 6 that has been debunked by independent fact checkers and law enforcement agencies.
In fact, a poll a week after the attack found that a majority of Republican voters still believe anti-fascist activists were responsible for the storming of the Capitol.
An Economist/YouGov poll shows more than two-thirds of the Republicans surveyed blame anti-fascist activists – colloquially known as antifa – for the violence, which was actually perpetrated by Donald Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists seeking to overturn the result of November's presidential election.
(David Brennan. “Most Republicans Still Believe Capitol Riot Antifa Conspiracies: Poll.” Newsweek. January 14, 2021.)
It is evident Republicans are not willing to cast Trump aside or move on to a new generation of leaders now that he is out of office.
A Morning Consult poll (reported in Forbes on January 27) found that 81% of Republican voters polled Jan. 23-25 had a positive view of Trump, up from 76% who said the same Jan. 10-12.
Another exclusive Suffolk University/USA TODAY Poll of 1,000 Trump voters reported Trump's support largely unshaken after his second impeachment trial in the Senate, this time on a charge of inciting the insurrection in the deadly assault on the Capitol January 6.
Asked to describe what happened during the assault on the Capitol, 58% of Trump voters call it "mostly an antifa-inspired attack that only involved a few Trump supporters." That's more than double the 28% who call it "a rally of Trump supporters, some of whom attacked the Capitol." Four percent call it "an attempted coup inspired by President Trump."
Mitch McConnell leads the charge to defend Trump; however, many other key Republican lawmakers are solidly in the corner of the ex-president. South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham believes that Trump is the key to the Republican Party’s success in the future. In a Fox News interview, he argued, “I hope people in our party understand the party itself. If you’re wanting to erase Donald Trump from the party, you’re gonna get erased.”
Moreover, Trump has threatened political retribution against those GOP members of Congress who supported impeachment. A Trump advisor told CNN that the former president's new focus is getting back at the ten Republicans who voted with Democrats in the House to bring about the impeachment trial.
CNN reported that Trump refers to the payback as "accountability" for what he views as "going against the people."
Trump has already created the “Office of the Former President,” which aims to “advance the interests of the United States and … carry on the agenda of the Trump Administration through advocacy, organizing, and public activism,” hinting that, no matter what, he will play an influential political role in the future, whether that be through starting a new media company, supporting political candidates, or eventually running for president in 2024 if he is not convicted and barred from running for federal office by the US Senate.
(Melissa Quinn. “Trump opens 'Office of the Former President' in Florida.” CBS News. January 27, 2021.)
Brookings evaluated the current situation …
“Over the course of four years as president, Trump masterfully consolidated Republican voters into a cult of personality. His hardcore supporters were willing to believe anything that left his lips, regardless of evidence to the contrary. They were willing to put their own lives at risk as he huddled them together at rallies and mocked those taking precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19. They were willing to commit insurrection against their own government, all in his name and to support his lies about election malfeasance.
“That non-trivial group of Republican and Republican-leaning voters is not going away, and they remain loyal not to the party but to Donald Trump. It remains to be seen exactly how large this group is, how much power they will wield in Republican primaries and whether a non-Trumpublican candidate can consolidate the remainder of the party.”
(John Hudak, Christine Stenglein, and Elaine Kamarck. “Trump’s future: Nine possibilities.” Brookings Institute. February 05, 2021.)
January 6th showed us that there is essentially nothing Republicans are unwilling to do in his name. Over his five-year career in politics, Trump has wriggled free from political predicaments that would sink most others.
Trump is now sitting on a huge pot of cash – well over $50 million – that he could use to prop up primary challenges against Republicans who backed his impeachment or refused to support his failed efforts to challenge the election results using bogus allegations of mass voter fraud.
Is barring Trump from office an option? Trump would likely need to be convicted first. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment could still be used to bar the former president from running for future office. This section bars any public official who swore an oath to protect the Constitution from holding office if they "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against it or gave "aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
The long and short of it? The Republican Party could have taken an off-ramp from Trump himself and Trumpism. But, they did not want to take that turn in fear of losing power. Instead, they choose to remain loyal to a dangerous demagogue to maintain his voting base.
Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University and author/editor of 19 books on American political history, says
“Trump is a product of many decades where the Republican Party has changed dramatically in terms of [embracing] extremism, and the embrace of a very aggressive, smashmouth approach to politics. Trump accelerated those trends. He exposed where the party was, but he didn’t create it. There were deep roots to what he did.”
(Daniel Bush. “The post-Trump identity crisis that’s fracturing the GOP.” PBS News Hour. February 05, 2021.)
A growing far-right faction in the party is deeply loyal to Trump. How can Republicans like McConnell repudiate the dark side of Trumpism without making a full break from him? They excuse the narcissist's criminal behavior and divisive actions because they also embrace the White nationalism he promotes.
This is evident by their widespread embrace of conspiracy and disinformation. Their support for Trump endorses the "mass radicalization" of Americans and increases the risk of right-wing violence from alt-right groups like the Proud Boys and armed militias.
Worst of all, the Republican Party has shown no stomach for responsibility and cleaning up the damage done by a president with no regard for truth and the U.S. electoral system. In general, Republicans still support disinformation because a considerable number in their party embrace conspiracies that feed their fragility and violent tendencies.
Donald Trump continues to be the leader of self-proclaimed "real Americans" cocooned in their own news outlets, in their own social media networks and, ultimately, in their own "truth." They still seek to follow Trump as their own “chosen one” to “make America first” after he has committed numerous treasonable acts and disgraced America in the eyes of the world.
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