Another Passenger for the Trump Train
Plus: The cracks in Trump's party coronation.
Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine two years ago this weekend; it’s been two years of heroic resistance by the Ukrainian people, with the help of billions of dollars in weapons assistance from America and Europe. The latest aid package, passed by the Senate earlier this month, is still collecting dust in the House, where it would easily pass if Speaker Mike Johnson would allow it to come to a vote.
Happy Monday.
Every Bit of Resistance Matters
I’ve been triggered.
By whom? Not by someone monstrous like Vladimir Putin, someone despicable like Donald Trump, or even someone super-slimy like Matt Gaetz. It’s a decent, mild-mannered, likable man, an ordinarily and pretty reasonable elected official who’s done the triggering. It’s the Republican senator from South Dakota, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Thune.
On Saturday evening, after Trump won the South Carolina primary, Thune endorsed him for the 2024 Republican nomination.
I’m aware that on one level this endorsement doesn’t matter. I’m aware Trump is going to be the nominee, and that Thune’s endorsement will make no difference one way or the other. I’m aware Thune probably felt he had to do this because he wants to succeed Mitch McConnell as Republican leader, and because John Barrasso and John Cornyn, two competitors for that post, had endorsed Trump a month ago. I’m aware that more than half of Republican senators have already endorsed Trump, and that Thune was actually rather late to the parade of ritual self-abasement.
But precisely because Thune knows better, and I thought was better, the news hit harder. The capitulation of the decent is particularly demoralizing.
And I think it does matter.
The number of holdouts against Trump matters. Even if they’re not real holdouts who will actually say they won’t vote for Trump in the general election. Even if they’re not holdouts for now who might—gasp!—actually endorse Nikki Haley against Trump, or say a few words in praise of her by contrast with Trump.
But how about just a few mini-holdouts who won’t endorse Trump until he has mathematically clinched the nomination, and will then simply say they support the Republican nominee and leave it at that?
Is that degree of restraint in embracing the deplorable too much to ask? Apparently.
Every bit of resistance—even every bit of reluctance, every bit of restraint—does matter in helping increase the number of wavering, Republican-leaning voters who will a) vote for Haley now and b) not vote for Trump in the general election.
Thune chose not to make even that modest contribution to our national well-being.
Possibly I’m being unfair. If I discover that, in return for his premature capitulation, Thune secured from Trump an agreement not to oppose a deal to bring aid for Ukraine to the floor of the House, I’ll de-trigger myself and recant this criticism.
But for now I’m inclined to indulge my indignation, and to quote Winston Churchill’s January 28, 1931, denunciation of Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald:
I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as ‘The Boneless Wonder.’ My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralizing and revolting for my youthful eye and I have waited fifty years to see The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.
And of course it’s not really one senator, John Thune, who triggered me. It’s all the Republican Boneless Wonders, all those who could have stood up and didn’t and who have so thoroughly and pathetically capitulated to Donald Trump over the last eight years.
I make no apology for being triggered by such a demoralizing and revolting spectacle.
—William Kristol
The Flies in the Ointment
Three data points from the weekend on Donald Trump’s obvious political strength and notable political weaknesses:
One: On Saturday, Trump handily beat Nikki Haley in her home state of South Carolina, 60 percent to 40 percent. In doing so, he became the first non-incumbent Republican ever to sweep all four early-state contests, confirming again that he is overwhelmingly likely to become the Republican nominee.
And yet the victory wasn’t enough to knock Haley from the race. “There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative,” Haley said from the stage in South Carolina, vowing to fight on.
Two: Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, as expected, said this morning she will resign next week, clearing the way for a new slate of RNC leaders who, if possible, will be even more slavishly loyal to Trump. (While McDaniel had been a key Trump ally for years, she angered him this cycle by failing to treat him like the party’s presumptive nominee as quickly as he would have liked, by doing things like allowing the RNC to hold a number of primary debates.)
And yet there remain flashes of defiance even at the RNC: The Dispatch reported this weekend that RNC veterans are circulating resolutions ahead of their meeting next month to bar party funds from being used to pay Trump’s legal bills and to prohibit the party proclaiming him the nominee before he’s locked up the requisite delegates.
Three: Also on Saturday, Trump offered his now-customary keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual three-day Trump lovefest just outside D.C., where attendees showed up dutifully to cheer on the old sinister bombast: “For hardworking Americans, November 5 will be our new liberation day, but for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and impostors who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day.”
And yet for the most part it was an unusually subdued speech in front of an unusually sleepy crowd, ninety minutes of droning through the old hits to sporadic applause.
A central tenet of Trump’s self-mythology is the universal support he supposedly enjoys from All True Republicans, with the only continued holdouts a tiny smattering of sore loser RINOs that somehow still haven’t gotten the memo they’re not welcome at the ascendant MAGA jamboree.
And yet, all these flies in the ointment! Haley lacks a plausible path to victory in the primary, but seems content simply to carry on as an avatar for GOP Trump resistance: So far across the early contests, she’s collected 2 votes to every 3 earned by Trump himself. Trump’s getting his RNC purge, but it’s not enough to stop embarrassing headlines about RNC members who don’t want the RNC to function as his personal piggy bank. And even the hometown crowd at CPAC isn’t what it used to be.
The Anti-Ukraine Turn Wasn’t Inevitable
One more note on CPAC: Perhaps the last useful function of the conference is providing a window into the seething id of the MAGA base and the right-wing infotainment industry that fuels it. Where do they stand on Ukraine? The CPAC straw poll conducted Saturday makes it clear: 82 percent of attendees disapprove of the government giving billions more in aid to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s invasion, while only 17 percent approve.
Polling consistently shows that large majorities of Americans still support Ukraine; Pew this month found that 75 percent say the war is “important to U.S. interests.” When Republicans talk about the desire of “the American people” to choke off funds, it’s the CPAC constituency they have more in mind.
But it’s important to remember that it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that even the CPAC crowd would end up here. Two years ago, CPAC—taking place in Orlando that year—came just days after Putin first launched his invasion. Then, many speakers made reference to the bravery of the Ukrainian people and the importance of their resistance.
There was Sen. Marco Rubio: “These are people who are basically saying we refuse to be Putin’s slaves.”
There was talk show host Mark Levin: “We don’t pretend that when freedom-loving people are being crushed and slaughtered by an enemy of the United States, it doesn’t matter. It matters . . . These people want to live and they want to fight. They should have arms to kill as many of these bastards as they possibly can.”
Even Trump was straightforward at the time: The “Russian attack on Ukraine is appalling. It’s an outrage and an atrocity that should never have been allowed to occur.”
The CPAC crowd ate this sort of thing up, at the time.
Even then, of course, there were glimmers of what would eventually become the party line. “The U.S. southern border matters a lot more than the Ukrainian border,” Charlie Kirk said. Rep. Matt Gaetz played a similar tune: “What about freedom here in this country? . . . Why should Americans have to pay the costs of freedom elsewhere when our own leaders don’t even stand up for our freedom here?”
Ultimately, Trump’s friendliness toward Russia and Putin, the growing strength of the isolationist wing of the party, and brute negative polarization swung the bulk of the base around to that line of thinking. What the final consequences of that shift will be for Ukraine remain to be seen.
Catching up . . .
Man dies after setting himself on fire outside Israeli embassy in Washington, police say: New York Times
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel stepping aside for Trump loyalists: Axios
Russia’s 2024 election interference has already begun: NBC News
The prospect of a second Trump presidency has the intelligence community on edge: Politico
Supreme Court to hear free speech challenges to social media laws: New York Times
Gavin Newsom faces another recall threat in California: Politico
Trump under fire for saying his mug shot appeals to black voters: NBC News
Quick Hits
1. The Next Level, in Meatspace!
Sarah, JVL, and A.B. did a live taping of The Next Level at the (sold out, highly successful!) Principles First conference in D.C. this weekend. It was a great show:
2. Where Does Ukraine Go From Here?
Leading The Bulwark today, Cathy Young assesses the newly trendy narrative of Russian economic strength and Ukrainian demoralization that has sparked pessimism even among many supporters of Ukraine:
Ukrainian victories, particularly in the fall of 2022, raised expectations, aided by apparent disarray in the Russian armed forces; the conflict between the Wagner mercenary forces and Russia’s Ministry of Defense culminated in the Wagner mutiny last June. But the rebellion fizzled (and we all remember how it turned out for its leader, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, once touted as a possible Putin rival). Meanwhile, Russia was able to fortify its defenses in occupied Ukrainian territories enough to largely thwart the Ukrainian counteroffensive—and then seize the initiative and go on the offense, forcing Ukraine into a defensive position. The fall of Avdiivka was the result—though many observers also blame it on ammunition shortages caused by interruptions in American aid due to the Republicans’ sabotage of military support for Ukraine.
So now we’re seeing not only everyone knows Ukraine can’t win gloating from such habitual Kremlin-talking-point amplifiers as David Sacks and Glenn Greenwald, but also such headlines as “Why Ukraine Is Starting to Lose” from people sympathetic to Ukraine’s cause.
Still, some commentators—such as Russian-American journalist Michael Nacke, an analyst who, while unabashedly sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause, is sufficiently sober and fact-based to have warned about the overhyping of the Ukrainian counteroffensive last summer—argue that this new pessimism is in large part the product of Russian propaganda intended to undercut Western support for Ukraine and force Ukraine into peace talks on unfavorable terms. In a video he posted over the weekend, Nacke derided the illusion of Russian success as a Kremlin-sponsored “global bluff” and, even more colorfully, as a “castle of sand and shit.”
The pyrrhic victory at Avdiivka, a ravaged and depopulated town taken at massive cost (videos shot by Russians themselves show the ground literally littered with dead bodies of Russian soldiers), is a case in point. Last week, Russian war blogger and ex-soldier Andrei Morozov (“Murz”) committed suicide after state media propagandists savaged him for talking about the huge losses in the four-month battle for Avdiivka. This conflict, and its tragic results, suggests that societal consolidation around the war is an illusion—and these tensions can only grow if there’s a new round of mobilization.
Cheap Shots
If Bill Kristol is surprised at the "capitulation of the decent" in the GOP, as practiced by John Thune or any of the dozens of others who fell into that camp over the last several years, he likely is the only one here who says that with a straight face. How to say this, tactfully and respectfully? Um, Bill, ... these people never were as decent as you want to believe. They are like so many others who operate out of self-interest, occasional greed, and constant awareness of what moves them forward personally more than what is best for you. Or for me. Or for anyone else outside of their own sphere. And, sorry, but this is not news. It is as old as the existence of living, breathing creatures on this Earth. It is called self-preservation, and like so many others, he will put himself and his own ahead of you and yours, and us and ours, every time.
I know it is a disappointment to realize that those people are not who you thought they were. But that is in fact who we knew they were, and who they have been all along. It simply took a time in which they saw a threat to their own success and well-being, summed up their courage, and caved in, out of expedience and personal welfare. More principled people left politics or took a brave stand upon their bedrock principles, even if it could cost them their perks and position of power and -- gasp -- would require them to live like their constituents and find other work that is fulfilling and capable of paying bills. If Thune is one of those who surrendered to the long arms of MAGA, that's who he is, and it is who he has been all along. It simply took him this long to show it conclusively. They say that crisis reveals character. More and more we see that there is very little character left in the GOP. The biggest question remaining is how low they will go when the Thunes of our nation put a price tag on their own political survival and what it will cost the rest of us in the end to pay that bill.
How do you write about the CPAC and not include the fact that right-wing activist Jack Posobiec opened the conference with, “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here [holding up a cross necklace]. After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.”???