(Dobbs) Millions Vote for Violence
The legacy of John McCain and Ronald Reagan has disappeared.
If this doesn’t scare you about the state of politics— the state of Republican politics— nothing will.
A survey this summer led by political scientist Robert Pape at the University of Chicago reached this conclusion: from the beginning of April to the end of June, “Americans agreeing that ‘the use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency’ increased from 4.5% to 7%, or the equivalent of an estimated shift from 12 million to 18 million American adults.” To put that in context, it was just before April when Trump was indicted for falsifying business records to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels, and his second criminal indictment came by mid-June, for keeping top secret documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstructing the government’s efforts to find them.
Think about that: in that time frame, the number of Americans endorsing the use of force to put Trump back in the White House became half again larger.
Who knows if even more Americans added their approval for the use of force after criminal indictments three (for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power on January 6th), and four (for racketeering to overturn the election results in Georgia)? But 18 million Americans is scary enough. Not just because they are willing to resort to violence to have their way, but because it means there are at least that many citizens who are so taken in by the false claims of their idol that they would abandon the decent traditions of our democracy.
Ominously, the title of Pape’s project is “Dangers to Democracy,” and the appellation could not be more apt. If it’s fair to infer that almost all those Americans who favor the use of force are Republicans, then the biggest danger to democracy is today’s pitiful version of the Republican Party itself.
It’s so pitiful that in Wednesday night’s GOP presidential debate— which Trump imperiously skipped— the seven candidates vying for a distant second place in the race never rebuked him for the broad range of crimes for which he has been charged.
A few poked jabs at his refusal to join the debates, and at his contributions to the national debt, but as to the accusations of obstruction and insurrection? Apparently it was more important to argue about Vivek Ramaswamy’s use of the Chinese app TikTok and Nikki Haley’s drapes in her New York apartment. But the criminal cloud over the presumptive presidential nominee? It never came up. It is worth noting that in the case of New Jersey’s Democratic senator Robert Menendez, indicted a week ago for corruption, once-close colleagues from the state’s governor to its other senator to the speaker of the state assembly have called for him to resign. All Democrats. But from the other side on Trump, nothing. Not a single profile in courage. That is the scary state of the Republican Party today.
Which leads to so many other things that are equally scary, and that begins with the demagogic rhetoric of the ex-president himself.
This week alone, he accused the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff— a man who, unlike the former president, has sacrificed his life to serve in countries like Haiti and Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan— of treason.
Trump wrote on his website, “In times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” For good measure, he said the same of Comcast, which owns NBC and MSNBC, demanding that it should be investigated for its “Country Threatening Treason.” That seems a bit odd, considering that the week before, Trump was the featured guest on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He also pulled out his inflammatory old trope about the media in general: “They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”
Meanwhile Tuesday, after he was convicted in New York of fraud, he called the judge “deranged” and wrote, “If they can do this to me, they can do this to YOU!” It’s bad enough that he’d say it, knowing that it incites more anger and deeper distrust. But it’s just as bad that his followers, although they haven’t broken any laws, are gullible enough to believe it.
None of it would mean much if Trump was just golfing in exile at one of his princely resorts. But he’s not. With his rabble-rousing recitation at rallies that “I’m your retribution,” he’s running for revenge. And that’s another scary part. Although he has more than a half-dozen rivals, polls show that he commands more allegiance among Republicans than the rest of them combined. Every time he is charged with a new crime, his undying disciples send more money. Including this week, after his conviction for fraud. For Donald Trump, who by his own telling has never done anything wrong— remember the “perfect call” that got him impeached?— every additional charge is a badge of honor. And, no accident, a source of income.
If all of that is not scary enough, consider Congress. Yesterday, with only three days before the federal government goes over a cliff, the Republican-led House put its priorities on display by opening its ineffectual impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.
It’s ineffectual because while they’re accusing the president of high crimes and misdemeanors, even some in their own party admit, they have no evidence. By and large these are the same Republicans who voted twice against impeaching their beloved past president because they found nothing wrong with his behavior, neither with his extortion call in 2019 to Ukraine’s president threatening to withhold military aid, nor with his role in the insurrection of January 6th, 2021.
And that’s not the end of it. Also this week, with their disregard for the nation’s security on display yet again, the Republican House voted to cut the salary of the secretary of defense down to a dollar. Why? Because the combustible congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has grievances against the secretary. “Lloyd Austin, the secretary of defense of the United States, definitely deserves to be fired,” she argued. “$1 is too much.” Of course she will continue to pull down her salary of $174,000, even when the government shutdown— for which she is a driving force— means millions of federal workers miss their paychecks.
Not every Republican is part of this wrecking crew of extremists. Plenty are still committed to dialogue and democracy. But plenty aren’t. Unfortunately, those in the mold of John McCain and Ronald Reagan are not the ones who are running the show.
And here’s maybe the scariest part of all. Even before his trials scheduled for late March for the hush money payments, and mid-May for the purloined documents at Mar-a-Lago— and long after this year’s convictions for financial fraud and sexual abuse— Donald Trump’s trial for attempting to overturn the 2020 election is set to start in Washington on Monday March 4th. The very next day is Super Tuesday when, after three earlier GOP primaries and three state caucuses, 14 states will have their primaries (and one more holds its caucuses). As David Axelrod pointed out on CNN, Trump could end up nailing down the nomination on the second day of his trial for sedition.
This is the sad state of Republican politics today. And if they win next year, the sad state of America.
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, 1969, called “Are You Still Listening.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
The good news is .... although there are 18 million who'd use force to get Trump restored to the presidency... there are still 315 million who wouldn't. Or 315 million who presumably would work in some way, shape or form to keep our constitution in place. As shocking a number as 18 million is, the extremists are still hugely outnumbered. Let's hope they keep that in mind.
Sad state indeed. Very well reported Greg. The sad reality is that so many MAGA voters have no clue that DJT broke so many real laws that should matter to every law-abiding American.