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The Republicans Who Won’t Quit Trump

The Atlantic

www.theatlantic.com › newsletters › archive › 2023 › 11 › trump-republican-support-chris-sununu › 676175

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Prominent Republicans criticized Donald Trump for two years. So why are even these supposed moderates now pledging to support him?

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

Why won’t OpenAI say what the Q* algorithm is? The dual threat of Donald Trump Putin’s deal with wife killers

Career Over Country

Breaking up, Neil Sedaka told us many years ago, is hard to do. But it shouldn’t be impossible. When a Republican governor describes Donald Trump as a “three-time loser,” warns that the party will lose “up and down the ballot” if Trump is the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, and calls the former president “fucking crazy,” it’s easy to imagine a responsible politician who has packed his bags and is waiting on the steps of the GOP’s Delta House for his taxi back to the world of sensible adults.

Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, however, is not such a politician.

Sununu gained a lot of media attention and applause from the Never Trump Republicans for being one of the former president’s most brutal critics. But now that Trump is all but inevitable as the GOP nominee, Sununu is bashing Joe Biden and embracing Trump as the lesser of two evils. “Did you see [Trump’s] last visit to New Hampshire?” Sununu said to reporters earlier this month. “He was comparing himself to Nelson Mandela and talking about Jesus Christ being speaker of the House—it was kooky talk … He sounds almost as bad as Joe Biden.”

Almost as bad as Joe Biden? I will be the first to note, as I did here, that Biden’s reputation as a walking gaffe hazard is well deserved. He gets carried away, embellishes, and remembers things that didn’t happen (a sign, I think, more of his penchant for self-important Irish blarneying than of his age). He spent his life as a senator; senators talk a lot, and sometimes they say dumb stuff.

But to compare Biden’s blunders to Trump’s derangement is inane. Trump’s mind often slips the surly bonds of Earth: He has claimed that he won all 50 states in the 2020 election, invented people who invariably call him “sir,” lied endlessly about an astonishing number of things, embraced the QAnon conspiracy theories, and, as Sununu himself admits, compared himself to Jesus Christ.

Biden is a competent politician who sometimes stumbles or goes off the rails in his public statements. Trump is a disturbed, emotionally disordered person who, in Liz Cheney’s words, is “the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office.”

So why is Sununu going to vote for Trump? Because Republicans have to win. That’s it. “I just want Republicans to win,” Sununu told Puck’s Tara Palmeri in a podcast released yesterday. “That’s all I care about.”

Perhaps if Sununu had been forced from office or personally threatened by Trump supporters, he might feel differently—or at least be less inclined to stand for such mindless hyper-partisanship.

Or perhaps not. Peter Meijer, the former GOP representative from Michigan who was primaried out of Congress and harassed because of his vote to impeach Trump a second time, has endured far worse than Sununu, and yet he, too, is backing Trump again. Meijer is running for one of Michigan’s U.S. Senate seats, and he seems to be trying to mollify the MAGA church long enough to carry a statewide election. Meijer, like Sununu, is laying his more-in-sorrow-than-anger shtick on the incumbent: “My overarching goal is to make Joe Biden a one-term president,” he told Adam Wren at Politico.

We could mine the statements of other Republicans for similar pyrite nuggets of shiny Trump criticism that amount to nothing. (Even Nikki Haley can bring herself to say only that Trump was the right guy at the right time—but now is the wrong time.) None of them, I would argue, really believes that Biden is a worse president than Trump was, and they all know the danger of a second Trump term. So why would they bend the knee one more time?

The Republicans coming back to Trump are driven by two factors: ambition and delusion.

Ambition is the easiest motive to explain. Mitt Romney, at 76 years old, is retiring: He can afford to say that he might vote for a Democrat rather than enable Trump again. He’s had it with his Republican colleagues and he wants to go home. But Haley is 51, Sununu is 49, and Meijer is 35. None of these people is ready, in Washington vernacular, to go spend more time with their family. They all probably expected Trump to be disgraced and driven from public life by now, and they had plans for their own future. They did not grasp that disgrace, in today’s GOP, is a fundraising opportunity, not a disqualification from office.

Numbed by opportunism, many Republicans will simply hunker down and try to survive the next five years. They’re all sure that, after that, it’ll be their time, and they will triumphantly cobble together a new GOP coalition out of independents, moderate Republicans, and what’s left of the MAGA vote, gaining that last group by assuring Trump’s base that no matter what they may have said about their idol, at least they never went over the fence and voted for a Democrat.

But these ambitious Republicans are also under a self-serving delusion that the next Trump term will be something like the first Trump term. They assume that adults will somehow restrain Trump and that the nation will function more or less normally while Trump goes off to his beloved rallies. They are committed to the fantasy that four more years of a mad king will be akin to weathering one more passing storm. (They have also likely convinced themselves, as Haley did while working for Trump, that they can best limit the damage by being in the mix of GOP politics, rather than by being excommunicated.)

This dream narrative ends with the normal Republicans emerging from their tornado shelters, surveying some limited and reparable damage, and restoring the center-right, conservative kingdom. President Haley or Senator Meijer will get the GOP back to cutting taxes and erasing government regulations, all while mending fences with millions of people who were horrified by the violence and madness of Trumpism.

None of that is going to happen.

Trump has made it clear that he has no regrets about any ghastly thing he did as president, that as president again he will bring a legion of goons and cronies with him into the White House (including seditionists and rioters whom he will pardon and release from jail), and that he fully intends to finish the job of burning down American democracy. Politicians such as Sununu or Meijer know all of this, but they apparently think they will remain untouched by it. They have put their party and their personal fortunes over their allegiance to the Constitution, perhaps hoping that they will at least have a chance to rule over whatever is left in the ashes of the republic.

Today’s News

A new CDC report shows that U.S. life expectancy at birth rose in 2022, in part because of falling COVID deaths. The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted an Indian man on murder-for-hire charges over an alleged plot to kill a Sikh activist in New York. Officials from Qatar, Egypt, and the U.S. are asking for an extension of the cease-fire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

Evening Read

Bettmann / CORBIS / Getty

Must the Novelist Crusade?

By Eudora Welty

Published in the October 1965 issue of The Atlantic.

Not too long ago I read in some respectable press that Faulkner would have to be reassessed because he was “after all, only a white Mississippian.” For this reason, it was felt, readers could no longer rely on him for knowing what he was writing about in his life’s work of novels and stories, laid in what he called “my country.” Remembering how Faulkner for most of his life wrote in all but isolation from critical understanding, ignored impartially by North and South, with only a handful of critics in forty years who were able to “assess” him, we might smile at this journalist as at a boy let out of school. Or there may have been an instinct to smash the superior, the good, that is endurable enough to go on offering itself. But I feel in these words and others like them the agonizing of our times.

Read the full article.

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Shan Wang contributed to this newsletter.

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Two Men Running to Stay Out of Prison

The Atlantic

www.theatlantic.com › ideas › archive › 2023 › 11 › donald-trump-joe-biden-2024-election-avoiding-jail › 676168

Bill Clinton sometimes joked that the White House was “the crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system,” a sentiment shared by a few other presidents. In the 2024 presidential election, the winner will be remanded to the facility. But in a unique set of circumstances, the loser—whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden—might also face incarceration, in a real federal prison.

Trump is up to his ears in legal troubles that he’d like to make disappear, and winning reelection would likely allow him to dispense with at least the federal cases against him. Former Representative Will Hurd made this point last summer, when he was running against Trump for the Republican nomination. “Donald Trump is not running for president to make America great again. Donald Trump is not running for president to represent the people that voted for him in 2016 and 2020,” Hurd told a crowd of Iowa Republicans. “Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.”

As stump-speech material, this was not especially effective. Hurd has since dropped out of the Republican presidential primary, and Trump remains dominant. But Hurd’s point was good. Not only has reporting from Trump’s inner circle indicated that the fear of prosecution—and the power of a president to quash federal cases against him—has motivated Trump, but his defense attorneys effectively confirmed it in a filing this summer.

[David A. Graham: Trump confirms another liberal conspiracy theory]

A candidate who is running to potentially stay out of prison is a dangerous candidate. He is not just running for his own ideology or pride; he’s running for his very freedom. That warps his incentives, making him more likely to employ demagogic tactics, less concerned about the way history might judge him, and more inclined to use every avenue possible to win the election—even if it means bending or breaking the law.

Yet Trump may not be alone. In recent weeks, the former president has been more explicit about his intention, if reelected, to prosecute Joe Biden. And that means both leading candidates could have their freedom at stake.

Outwardly, neither man is taking the threat seriously. Trump dismissed Hurd’s claim, saying, “If I weren’t running, I would have nobody coming after me. Or if I was losing by a lot, I would have nobody coming after me.” The Biden campaign did not reply to a request for comment on Trump’s recent remarks.

[David A. Graham: Trump isn’t merely unhinged]

Whether Trump could really see the inside of a cell is a matter of intense debate even among legal experts, but this much is clear: The federal charges he faces are grave; some of the cases against him, particularly those related to refusing to hand over classified records, seem strong; and convictions on these charges can bring prison time.

As for Biden, the idea of a prosecution would seem absurd under any other circumstances. The president has not been charged with a crime, and long-running Republican investigations into his family have so far turned up plenty of proof of bad behavior by his son Hunter Biden, but no evidence of crimes by the president himself. Nonetheless, Trump has strongly suggested that he would concoct an excuse to indict and arrest Biden, as retaliation for what he sees as the political prosecution of himself. “They brought our country to a new level, and, but that allows—think of this—that allows us to do it to Biden, when he gets out,” he said at a rally in October. Later, in November, he sounded a similar theme: “They have done something that allows the next party—I mean, if somebody, if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’”

[Read: Donald Trump’s absentee presidency]

Knowing how seriously to take Trump is impossible. His first term in office showed that he tries to follow through on some of his most dangerous rhetoric, but also that some of it is just talk. Trump didn’t attempt to lock up Hillary Clinton, despite the chants on the 2016 campaign trail, but in a recent interview with conservative media personality Glenn Beck, he said that he would jail rivals if he won: “The answer is you have no choice because they’re doing it to us.”

The United States has never seen an election like this, largely because Trump is a sui generis phenomenon. Richard Nixon left office under threat of prosecution, but was quickly pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford. Bill Clinton struck an agreement the day before leaving office to avoid prosecution for lying under oath, though he would have been unlikely to face prison time.

But examples elsewhere in the world show the danger of having leaders who fear that leaving office might imperil their freedom: Such presidents may alter their country’s system to remove checks and balances and weaken the rule of law in order to protect themselves.

In Turkey, opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have long claimed that he feels a need to stay in power lest he be locked up upon leaving office. Certainly, Erdoğan has faced several serious accusations of corruption over his many years in office. A 2010 WikiLeaks dump included diplomatic cables in which a U.S. ambassador to Turkey said that Erdoğan had Swiss bank accounts; Erdoğan threatened to sue. In 2014, leaked tapes appeared to capture him telling his son to dispose of fishy money. Erdoğan also successfully pressured the Trump administration to bring an end to the prosecution of a Turkish bank, which threatened to implicate Erdoğan himself.

[Read: What’s so bad about Trump calling Erdoğan?]

Trump—who, like Erdoğan, made his fortune in real estate and construction—is a big fan of the Turkish president. When Turkey held a 2017 referendum that brought new powers to the presidency, in a vote marred by irregularities, critics condemned Trump for quickly congratulating Erdoğan.

Unlike Trump, however, Erdoğan has never faced a credible investigation. “I don’t think [Erdoğan’s] running to stay out of jail, probably because it’s unlikely, given how [he] has packed the courts and the prosecutors,” Steven Cook, a senior fellow who studies the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me.

Another possible parallel is Egypt, where the past two presidents—Hosni Mubarak, toppled in the 2011 Arab Spring, and Mohamed Morsi—were removed from office and imprisoned. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is “determined that he won’t let that happen to him,” Cook said. To that end, Sisi has presided over a crackdown on freedoms and on criticism of his government.

When a leader acts out of this kind of fear, he has incentives to take actions that don’t just help himself but that can corrupt government systems well past his own term in office—or, for that matter, in prison. Taking either Turkey or Egypt as a model for governance would be a tragedy for the United States, and warning signs abound, such as Trump’s demonstrated hatred of rule of law. A system in which a candidate fears that electoral defeat might lead him to prison on flimsy pretenses is a sick one. A system in which a candidate who might rightfully belong in prison could win is an even sicker one.

Egypt’s Sinai Bedouins fear Israel’s mass displacement of Gaza Palestinians

Al Jazeera English

www.aljazeera.com › features › 2023 › 11 › 29 › egypts-sinai-bedouins-fear-israels-mass-displacement-of-gaza-palestinians

Bedouin tribes in Sinai have long taken a hit from geopolitical conflicts. Now, concerns are rising again.

Grief to courage: A Palestinian stranded in Egypt as Israel bombs Gaza

Al Jazeera English

www.aljazeera.com › features › 2023 › 11 › 27 › grief-to-courage-a-palestinian-stranded-in-egypt-as-israel-bombs-gaza

Mohammed Kafarna spoke to Al Jazeera over two months of being trapped in Egypt, despairing as friends died, family fled.

Hamas hands over first group of Israeli hostages to Red Cross in Gaza Strip

Euronews

www.euronews.com › 2023 › 11 › 24 › hamas-hands-over-first-group-of-israeli-hostages-to-red-cross-in-gaza-strip

The handover took place in a hospital in Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip. The hostages are now said to be on their way to the Rafah border crossing to Egypt.