On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced that he’d received notice that he’s a target in the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation — a not entirely surprising development. Also unsurprising was the parade of Trump allies lining up to defend their deity: Marjorie Taylor Greene said: “This needs to end. It’s an absolute lie, and every single time, President Trump is proven innocent time and time and time again.” Kevin McCarthy: “If you noticed recently, President Trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing President Biden for re-election, so what do they do now? Weaponize government to go after their No. 1 opponent.” Even Ron DeSantis couldn’t help but display this same brand of devotion to the guy who is unilaterally responsible for his political demise: “I hope he doesn’t get charged. I don’t think it will be good for the country.” The only way DeSantis could seem more deferential to his opponent would be if he urged his supporters to vote for Trump in the primaries.
In effect, these Republicans are positioning themselves against charges that don’t yet exist.
First off, I should note that these tantrums began before any indictment had even been unsealed, so in effect, these Republicans are positioning themselves against charges that don’t yet exist. That’s your first clue that all of the public theatrics may not be on the level. What I’d give for a reporter to ask, quite simply, which part of the nonexistent indictment they take issue with.
More ridiculous is the assertion that Trump should be immune from prosecution because he’s the leading candidate for the Republican nomination. As if running for an office whose function is quite literally to faithfully execute the laws of the U.S. shouldn’t actually be subject to the laws of the U.S. Please, someone, make it make sense.
But most perplexing is why they’ve chosen this hill to die on. The issue of Jan. 6 isn’t a winning one for Republicans. According to a CNN poll, 69% of Americans consider the Jan. 6 attack to be a crisis or a major problem for American democracy, and 79% of Americans feel that Trump acted either unethically or illegally, that he encouraged political violence in his public statements ahead of Jan. 6 (61%) and that he could have done more to stop the attack once it had begun (77%). Add that to Trump’s sky-high disapproval rating, and it would seem that Republicans are hellbent on tying electoral anvils around their necks.
And look, I understand the Catch-22 that Republicans find themselves in: Getting elected starts with the base, with which they need to prove themselves adequately loyal to Trump, but the more they tie themselves to Trump, the less electable they become in general. I get the predicament. But Trump enjoys this remarkable power precisely because these Republicans are bending over backward to give it to him— often, like in this very scenario, completely unprovoked. They are falling over themselves to ensure that he remains the leading figure on the right, thereby entrenching the Catch-22 that’s responsible for cycle after cycle of Republican losses.
And frankly, the only explanation I can think of given their voluntary rush to defend him over an issue that polls so disastrously for the GOP is that they must enjoy the irreconcilable position they find themselves in. And while I’m certainly not here to kink-shame, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around their servility to the one person most responsible for the downfall of the modern Republican Party.
Just like Republicans have embraced wholly unpopular abortion bans and book bans and interstate travel bans, LGBTQ bans and Don’t Say Gay laws and attacks on earned benefits, they’ll also embrace Trump and his efforts to undermine our democracy on Jan. 6, because this is a party that exists to pander to the same extremist elements that are destroying its own viability.