It's not what Trump can do for you - it's what you can do for Trump
Trump may have finally gone too far - even for some Republicans
Editorial rights purchased by iStock. Photo by Roman Tiraspolsky
The numbers aren’t looking good for the former president. Granted, he can still rally his core base around the usual cries of incompetence on the part of the Democratic Party (the party that brought them an infrastructure bill Republicans in Congress are taking credit for — even if they didn’t vote for it).
But Trump is now promising to pardon anyone convicted of criminal activity related to the events on January 6.
This is problematic for Trump because independents and moderate Republicans do not support the violent overthrow of the government. They may want Trump back in office, but they do not believe what they all witnessed on live TV that day is acceptable behavior, and they do not support a sanctioned failure to hold accountable those who trashed the Capitol building and called for the hanging or Mike Pence and the murder of Nancy Pelosi.
It’s also true that many of Trump’s supporters still believe the Big Lie, but Trump is losing ground with these same moderates and independents by continuing to insist he is still the “real president.”
In addition, he did nothing to further his cause by announcing on CNN that he believes Pence had the right to overturn the 2020 election results but simply failed to do so.
Trump’s most recent tirade now involves railing against the “radical, vicious, racist prosecutors” who are persecuting him, despite what he’d like us to believe is his squeaky-clean record.
The overarching problem for Trump now is that it’s not about him anymore. Republicans are moving on, as witnessed by the recent response to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s short speech at a Houston rally on Jan 29.
While Abbott included over two dozen references to Trump in his six-minute speech, he still got “scattered boos and chants of ‘RINO’ — Republican in name only — as some voters expressed their view that he has not sufficiently implemented Trumps’ agenda — particularly on immigration.”
It seems the party is less concerned about Trump and more interested in the policies Trump promoted and the reforms he promised. What they are slowly coming to realize is that Trump doesn’t care about policy. He just wants to win — and for the party to get the support it needs from moderates and independents, that’s not enough.
Already some Republicans are speaking out against Trump’s promise of a pardon for the Capitol rioters. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu spoke on this issue within hours of the Trump proclamation to pardon anyone involved in the insurrection:
“There’s a rule of law. I don’t care whether you were part of the burning — burning cities in antifa in 2020, you were storming the Capitol in 2021. Everybody needs to be held fairly accountable . . . That’s part of leadership.”
Even Lindsey Graham, who has toggled back-and-forth on Trump’s responsibility for the events of Jan 6 made it clear on Face the Nation that he did not agree with Trump’s suggestion that the Jan 6 rioters should be pardoned:
“I don’t want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was OK. I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future.”
Of course, Trump’s core base is still fully behind him. But his latest call for public protests against every investigation into his activities is yet another example of how Trump is no longer offering to help the American people. He is asking the American people to help him.
While the rabid group who believe his lies will likely have no issue with this, their numbers are not growing. And without moderate Republicans and independents, the party that thrives on extreme right-wing policies but refuses to announce their platform ahead of 2024, appears to have little chance of putting Trump back in the Oval.
If things look this bleak for Trump now, even before the public airing of the Jan 6 Committee hearings, it’s unlikely he will find a way to win over the number of moderates and independents he will need to win in 2024. That’s the good news.
The bad news: Ron DeSantis.