The MAGA Education of Larry Hogan
The Senate candidate learns the hard way that his party no longer supports the rule of law.
FORMER MARYLAND GOVERNOR LARRY HOGAN left office last year with a 77 percent job-approval rating—astonishing for anyone, and especially for a Republican in a deep blue state. But now, as a Senate candidate, the formula that won him two terms as governor is imploding on contact with the MAGA GOP.
It started off well for Republicans interested in actually winning a Senate majority. Hogan said some dozen senators called to encourage him to get into the race, and so did former President George W. Bush. By February, Hogan made it official: He was in.
This was a second round of courtship, after Hogan had resisted recruitment efforts in 2022. So, finally, success for the reality-based GOP strategy community.
But the thrill of victory has faded fast. Lara Trump, Donald’s daughter-in-law and handpicked co-chair of the Republican National Committee, all but threw Hogan under the bus Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union over his “ridiculous” and “very upsetting” statement last week just before a jury convicted the former president on 34 felony counts.
What triggered her delicate sensibilities? Hogan had posted an anodyne message urging respect for the legal process “regardless of the result,” and for “what has made this nation great: the rule of law.” But that was apparently a little too real for the MAGA set, the many Republicans who want to be Trump’s running mate or Senate majority leader, any Republican simply hoping to stay viable in GOP politics, and top Trump adviser Chris LaCivita (who declared the statement had instantly “ended” Hogan’s campaign).
“He doesn’t deserve the respect of anyone in the Republican party at this point and, quite frankly, anybody in America,” Lara Trump said of Hogan. “I think he should have thought long and hard before he said that publicly,” she added. Would she spend party money for him? “I will get back to you,” Trump told Kasie Hunt.
Translation: What nerve, respecting the legal process instead of my father-in-law. Money? Dream on. (Don’t forget, she vowed months ago to spend “every single penny” of RNC funds to elect Donald.)
Hogan’s disconnection from today’s off-the-rails GOP is only one of his huge problems. For starters, Maryland voters who love Trump know that Hogan doesn’t, and Maryland Democrats really, really don’t like Trump. In 2020, Trump lost the state by more than 33 points, and I’m betting it’ll be even more lopsided this year. Plus, most Maryland voters want a Democratic Senate.
None of this is surprising if you think of all that’s happened since 2020 to alienate Democrats, moderates, independents, libertarians, and rule-of-law Republicans, from Trump’s scheme to keep power after losing, to the civil trials that found him liable for sexual abuse, defamation and business fraud, to the four criminal indictments against him and the guilty verdicts last week, to his racist, sexist, vicious rhetoric and promises of vengeance that his supporters interpret—rightly and dangerously—as calls to action.
Nor has it escaped voters in Maryland, and beyond, that Trump, the Supreme Court, and conservative governors are engaged in a cutthroat culture-war competition that threatens abortion access, women’s health and lives, LGBTQ rights and medical care, books in schools, the rights to vote and to protest, classroom speech, and African-American history curriculum.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who tacked sharply right in his doomed primary bid against Trump, is now banning rainbow colors on state bridges for Pride Month. They have lit up that way in the past but this year, by gubernatorial edict, any lights will have to be red, white, and blue. The governor has branded it “Freedom Summer,” Orwellian irony no doubt unintended.
HOGAN, MEANWHILE, IS HEADING in the opposite direction. He attended his first Pride parade the other day and received a mixed reception, the Baltimore Banner reported, after having stayed mostly on the sidelines of LGBTQ issues as governor. When the Democratic legislature sent him bills expanding rights, for instance, he let them become law without his signature.
Beyond Hogan’s overtures toward the gay community, he is trying to assure Maryland residents that he is a staunch advocate for legal abortion. He says in his first television ad that if he wins this fall, he will support “legislation that makes Roe the law of the land in every state so every woman can make her own choice . . . because no one should come between a woman and her doctor.”
But whatever Hogan would or wouldn’t support in Congress, a bare Republican Senate majority—or even a 50–50 Senate with a GOP vice president to break ties—would control committees, the Senate floor, and the agenda. The potential for pressure on Hogan would be enormous, from confirming judges and justices, to restricting abortion and gay rights, and maybe even another impeachment trial if Trump tried to pardon himself or kill the two federal criminal cases against him for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election and for hoarding and hiding top secret national security documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.
Most in Congress have drifted with the alarming Trump tide of undermining the Manhattan case, the jury’s verdict and trust in the justice system itself—even two Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his February 2021 impeachment trial after the January 6th Capitol attack. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the Manhattan district attorney “brought these charges precisely because of who the defendant was rather than because of any specified criminal conduct.” And Sen Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the D.A. made “a political decision” to prosecute Trump.
Change a few words, add a dash of hysteria, and you’ve got Don Jr.’s latest fundraising pitch: “MY FATHER IS A POLITICAL PRISONER! . . . THERE IS NO CRIME AND THERE NEVER WAS.” Also, “disgusting miscarriage of justice” and “disastrous precedent” and “the greatest witch hunt of all time.”
Hogan has said he changed his mind and decided to run after Trump told congressional Republicans to reject a tough border and military aid package negotiated by a conservative Republican. “I saw a real solution to secure the border and provide funding for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan—something that most of the Republican senators had said was, all those things were important, and they were told to vote against what they believed in—it made me frustrated and angry enough to say, I think I’m going to go down there and try to do something about this,” he told MSNBC’s Luke Russert in March.
The MAGA hardliners, who don’t represent most of us but are determined nevertheless to be the boss of all of us, are lying in wait. The Senate is particularly easy to muck up and bog down, and they are ready. Ready to block Democratic nominees, legislative priorities, and funds for “partisan lawfare,” which is how they describe bringing charges against Trump. They claim the Biden administration is making “a mockery of the rule of law” and they want revenge: “We are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart.”
As Trump would say, unbelievable. Projection like we’ve never seen.
Hogan’s crash course in MAGA-style politics has gotten a lot more intense in the last few days. He may have a feeling he’s not in Maryland anymore, and he’d be right. Planet MAGA is home for the GOP these days—and Larry Hogan is an alien.
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