Forget Make America Great Again (again) as Donald Trump’s campaign slogan in 2024. A more appropriate one could be “Resistance is Futile”. After insisting he won the last presidential election, Trump has held on to his fans, while browbeating former Republican critics into bowing meekly to his demands. Can it only be a matter of time before the rest of America buckles and puts Trump back in the White House? If the behaviour of all those who privately can’t stand Trump but publicly applaud him is any guide, the answer is yes.
Love him or hate him, Trump’s ability to extract obedience on the Right is an impressive power that bolsters his mystique. Right now Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News presenter, is being feted as a celebrity in Moscow by the Russian media, while preparing to interview President Vladimir Putin for his internet channel. We don’t know yet whether their encounter will be as fawning as George Galloway’s meeting in Iraq with Saddam Hussein (“Sir, I salute your courage”) or whether Carlson has any vestiges of credibility as a journalist left. We do know that he shares Trump’s open admiration for Putin, has made no secret of his desire for a Russian victory over Ukraine and is the dominant voice on the Right pushing for Trump’s return to power.
But what does Carlson really think of Trump? Well, privately he said, “I hate him passionately”, in WhatsApp messages disclosed by Fox News before they settled their defamation trial with Dominion Voting Systems for an astonishing $787 million. He mocked that Trump’s business ventures always fail –—“What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that” — and added for good measure, “He’s a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us. I’ve been thinking about this every day for four years.”
This was in 2020, when Carlson thought Trump was an election loser who was on the way out. On further reflection, he decided discretion was the better part of valour and that what was good for Trump was good for Tucker. Perhaps his America First schtick and Putin hero-worship is more genuine than his admiration for Trump, though I wonder. We can be sure the young, bow-tied Carlson never dreamed of growing up as a shill for Russia. Yet he has done more than anyone besides Trump to persuade Republicans in Congress to turn their backs on Ukraine and withhold funds for their war effort.
Nobody truly loves their jailer but Republicans are in awe of Trump’s grip on their party
Yesterday Joe Biden called on Republicans in the Senate to show “a little spine” and vote for a cross-party bill on immigration and aid to Ukraine and Israel. Not a chance. The painstakingly negotiated bill was scrapped on Tuesday after personal arm-twisting by Trump and intense sound and fury from his internet echo chamber. JD Vance, the author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy who became a senator for Ohio in 2022, made the abandonment of Ukraine explicit in a post on X (Twitter): “The idea that we committed to supporting whatever came out of this negotiation is pure, unadulterated bullshit … We did not agree to a fig leaf to send another $61 billion to Ukraine.”
This is the same JD Vance who suggested in 2016 Trump was “America’s Hitler” and said, “I’m a Never Trump guy”. How things change when ambition comes knocking. For him, Ukraine’s fate is merely collateral damage. Vance, a Yale law school graduate who dreams of becoming president one day, is reportedly under consideration as Trump’s running mate. Greasing the wheel, he announced on ABC News last Sunday that he would have accepted the phoney slate of pro-Trump electors in swing states on January 6, unlike the then vice-president Mike Pence, whose insistence on upholding the US constitution looks more heroic by the day.
Nobody truly loves their jailer, but Republicans are in awe of Trump’s grip on their party. He is about to force the resignation of Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, for not buying in sufficiently to his “stop the steal” claims about the election, even though she has gone out of her way to please him. And it was dispiriting, if not surprising, to see Mitch McConnell, the Republican senate minority leader, cave in to Trump’s demands on the immigration and aid to Ukraine and Israel bill, despite the fact that Trump has repeatedly demeaned him a “loser” and insulted his wife, the former transport secretary Elaine Chao, as “Chinese-loving Coco Chow”.
Vance at least has ambition as an excuse, whereas McConnell, 81, is at the tail end of his career. The current Veepstakes have brought out astonishing levels of sycophancy from other would-be Trump running mates, such as Elise Stefanik, the chairwoman of the House Republican conference, who has taken to calling imprisoned January 6 rioters “hostages”. Not to mention Vivek Ramaswamy, whose own campaign for the presidency fizzled and is now vying for a place in Trump’s cabinet (VP is a bit of a stretch, even for a man of his unbridled confidence).
In his book, Nation of Victims, published only two years ago, Ramaswamy called Trump’s behaviour on January 6 “absolutely abhorrent” and claimed it was a “dark day for democracy”. More recently he has been claiming conspiratorially that the riot looked like “an inside job” and has regularly denounced aid for Ukraine. Another former Trump critic turned cheerleader is Ben Shapiro, a hugely successful US internet commentator, who has just had a number one hit on iTunes with an anti-woke rap called Facts. In 2016, Shapiro said he would “never” vote for Trump. Now he says simply, “I was wrong”. No doubt he means it, because he knows his career and clicks depend on it.
Cowards and knaves all! There is particular joy in Trumpworld over every sinner that repents because it is the ultimate proof of their man’s dominance. But with so many powerful figures capitulating to Trump, it seems harsh to expect the ordinary voter to be able to withstand his onslaught. There remains just one arena where the former president can’t get what he wants — or not yet, at any rate.
So far Trump has not succeeded in bending the law to his will. A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that private “Citizen Trump” is not immune from prosecution for alleged crimes committed while president. In theory it means the most important criminal case against Trump, for election interference leading up to the January 6 riot, will now proceed to trial. In a furious post on Truth Social, Trump ranted “a Nation-destroying ruling like this cannot be allowed to stand”.
The current Veepstakes have brought out astonishing levels of sycophancy from would-be Trump running mates
Ultimately, he may get his own way on this, as he has done with so much else. Trump has promised to appeal to the US Supreme Court, which is packed with his nominees and could reverse the decision or drag things out until the November election, at which point he may be back in power and could ask the Justice Department to dismiss the case. But even if the Supreme Court rules against him, most Republicans have sheepishly agreed that a guilty verdict at trial would not render Trump unfit for office. It is a remarkable turnaround from the days when their representatives in Congress were cowering in fear and begging him to call off the mob.
At present, the doughty American public still seems to think a criminal conviction is disqualifying for a president — but only by a whisker. According to an NBC poll this week, Trump leads Biden by 47 per cent to 42 per cent among registered voters. If Trump is convicted of a crime, Biden squeaks into a two-point lead of 45 per cent to 43 per cent, well within the margin of error.
There is plenty of time for Trump to try to badger the holdouts into voting for him.
