The Republican Party showing signs of fracture?

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

Former president Donald Trump made one of the most breathtakingly incendiary and dangerous speeches at a rally in Conroe, Texas last week when he protested that “Mike Pence could have overturned his election defeat by Joe Biden”. Perhaps his first admission of his electoral defeat. There is also separate evidence that Trump had met with Vice-President Pence on January 4, to so “persuade” him.

He falsely stated that he (Pence) had the power to overturn the election when he presided over Congress at the Capitol on January 6, to carry out the constitutional function of formally certifying the November 2020 election results and the Biden presidency. Mike Pence demurred, as he had concluded, rightly, that he did not have the constitutional power to overturn the votes of the electors.

Hence the slogans from the insurrectionists on January 6 to “hang Mike Pence”, with a gallows built on Congress grounds for this specific purpose. Trump doubled down on his lie about Pence’s failure to “do his duty” in a subsequent statement, that Pence should be investigated for his failure to overturn the election. An election which has been confirmed by all the election authorities and the courts of the land, including the Trump stacked Supreme Court, as one of the fairest in the history of the nation.

At this rally, Trump further incriminated himself by announcing that he had incited the January 6 assault on the Capitol, declaring that he would pardon the convicted felons who had participated in the insurrection if he wins re-election in 2024. An admission of complicity in the insurrection that presents the January 6 committee with all the evidence it needs to indict Trump for seditious conspiracy, if not treason.

One of his staunchest supporters, Senator Lindsey Graham, took exception to Trump’s determination to pardon those criminals who had violated the Capitol on January 6. Graham made a public statement to this effect, saying “No, I don’t want to send any signal that it was okay to defile the Capitol….And those who did it, I hope they go to jail and have the book thrown at them because they deserve it”. Senator Susan Collins agreed with Graham, saying, “I don’t think President Trump should have made that pledge to do pardons”. She added that “it’s very unlikely” that she would support Trump for president in 2024 given the “many other” qualified Republicans.

These comments by Graham and Collins immediately met with Trump’s wrath, and he used the worst insult in his lexicon to describe them, that of being a RINOs (Republican In Name Only).

To complete the trifecta, Trump threatened all-out mayhem in the streets of Washington DC, Atlanta and New York, if he is arrested by law enforcement and justice personnel of these cities, who have been investigating criminal activities during his presidency. Trump’s chilling words: “If these radical, vicious racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal (translation: their job, by arresting him), I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington DC, in New York, in Atlanta, and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt”. A clear signal to his base for violence if he is arrested.

The Texas speech explains Trump’s modus operandi, the ploy he has always used to maintain his continuing standing with his supporters. He loudly and proudly proclaims his involvement in the very crimes of which he is accused, so that his supporters are led to believe that there cannot be anything wrong or illegitimate in his actions if he publicly owns up to them. The statement he made during his election campaign in 2016, when he boasted “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” is illustrative of his contempt for the rule of law, indeed his conviction that he is above the law.

Earlier, the January 6 committee stated that it is scrutinizing White House papers recently released by the Archives, on orders of the Supreme Court. These papers indicate that Trump was involved in the drafting of a “national security finding”, which typically is used as a prelude to an Executive Order, for the security agencies to seize voting machines after the election. The papers also contain false assertions about foreign interference in the voting systems in the 2020 election, to conclude that Trump had “probable cause to direct the military to begin seizing voting machines”.

An interesting fact about the White House papers released by the Archives is that most were torn up before submission; the Archives had to “repair” them before releasing them to the committee.

Both the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Secretary, Ken Cuccinelli and Attorney General, William Barr, both ardent Trump supporters, had stated that seizing of voting machines had no legal authority.

This is a reiteration of the Big Lie, which, against all evidence, is still believed by a majority of Republicans. A defeated, disgraced former president continues to command overwhelming support among a considerable section of the American people and the majority of the Republican Party, a staggering concept in the backdrop of overwhelming evidence of criminal action by Trump, up to and including sedition and treason.

The present situation in the country, under the Biden administration, contributes to the popularity of the Trump controlled Republican Party. It is widely felt that Biden is unable to rule effectively and pass legislation as he is unable to control his own Democratic Party.

The first few months of the Biden’s presidency were most successful, with the passing of Part 1 of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), “a once-in-a-lifetime investment in our physical and social infrastructure and competitiveness”. Part 1 of this Plan, the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion relief and stimulus package passed in March, 2021, provided financial relief to the most vulnerable Americans who needed help to meet their basic needs. It also served to give a jump start to a lagging economy. President Biden’s actions in controlling the virus, with an approach completely based on science, brought the hospitalization and death tolls down, a great improvement on the criminally incompetent virus mismanagement of the previous administration.

The country’s economy and job numbers remain strong, though a recent jump in inflation has caused concern among consumers and disapproval among voters. Biden’s approval rates have dropped to its lowest levels, at 43%, largely because of his inability to pass Part 2 of the Build Back Better legislation and the Voting Rights Act. Both bills have been voted out by the minority, intransigent Republican Senate, with help from two Democratic Senators. Manchin (West Virginia) and Cinema (Arizona) have voted with the Republicans in the Senate to turn down these two vital pieces of legislation proposed by President Biden. Senators from two traditionally Red states, they worry more about their re-election than their loyalty to the Democratic Party or the welfare of the nation.

The Build Back Better Plan, a campaign promise of President Biden, is designed in its entirety to “set the United States to meet its climate goals, create millions of good-paying jobs, enable more Americans to join and remain in the workforce, and grow the economy from bottom up and the middle out”. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2021 would restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and combat the Draconian legislation recently passed by many Republican controlled state legislatures, especially in the “battleground states”, to suppress the right to vote of minorities and the poorer classes.

However, the present rantings of Trump, admissions of crimes and threats of further insurrections if he is found guilty, reeks of the desperation of a man who feels that the walls are closing in. Recent criticism by Senators Graham and Collins perhaps shows a chink in the popularity of Trump’s white supremacist base. Such disapproval of Trump will surely be followed by other centre-right Republicans, when they feel that Trump’s criminal and authoritarian behaviour is beginning to loosen the iron grip he once held over the Party.

There are increasing tensions as to why the former president has not been indicted by the Department of Justice in the face of convincing evidence against him. Does Attorney General Garland fear that such an indictment would unleash political violence in multiple cities by domestic terrorists who form the Trump “base”? As undoubtedly it will.

With a likely meltdown of the blind loyalty of moderate Republicans as evidence of Trump’s complicity in a violent coup, and his obvious ambitions of dictatorship, grows, the former defeated, disgraced and desperate president may be left with his armed, violent white supremacist base to carry out his orders for countrywide insurrection. Americans should fasten their seat belts, they are in for a rocky ride in these months leading to the midterms in November, 2022.

Donald Trump will not “go gentle into the good night”.