The calculation

I'm sure I've referred to this in passing, but I don't believe I've done a dedicated post on it.

The behavior of non-MAGA Republicans can be explained strictly in terms of party interest without resorting to questions of principle, ideology, or legislative goals. The big assertion here is that almost all intelligent, sane observers within the party believe that in the long term Donald Trump will be bad for the GOP, but removing him or even opposing him would cause serious short-term damage. When it appears that the cost of opposition is relatively low, the establishment turns against him. When the cost appears prohibitively high they line up behind him.

 

That's the calculation and it's more or less all you need to remember to understand the modern GOP.

Once you take this as a given, the swings in behavior that have confused so many political commentators suddenly make perfect sense, particularly around January 6th. In the days following the insurrection, it was easy to find Republicans willing to speak out both against Trump and the mob behind him, but, with a number of exceptions so small you can count them on one hand, every one of these Republican politicians has reversed his or her position. This shift goes from puzzling to perfectly logical if you remember the widespread conventional wisdom at the time that Trump's base would abandon him fairly shortly after the humiliation of losing, that these demonstrations were a last gasp of the movement.

If you go back and read the commentary and the conversations at the time, you will see that the consensus opinion was that the cult of personality would soon unravel with Donald Trump defeated and out of power. This position was even held by one of the authors of this blog. In a number of conversations between the two of us, Joseph argued quite convincingly that Donald Trump would not be able to maintain the same level of loyalty from his followers, while I took the other side. I feel a little bad about mentioning this -- we have very few serious disagreements and, when we do, Joseph probably has a better track record than I do after the dust settles -- but it goes to show how widespread the perception of a sinking Trump was.

As late as 2022, this was still the standard narrative in the establishment press with countless Trump is sinking in the polls articles appearing in places like the New York Times, Politico, and Slate ("Hear Me Out: Trump Won’t Run Again"). In the GOP itself, however, reality came for this argument much sooner as Republican politicians quickly realized that the former president's hold on the party was showing no signs of going away. If anything, the widespread belief that the election had been stolen had actually strengthened his standing. Attempting to force him out, even if it could be done, would have entailed a devastating, possibly fatal cost on the party. Merely standing up to him was seen as a risk not worth taking.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that other factors such as principle, ideology, achieving legislative goals, etc played no role in the various positions that the Republican establishment has taken toward Donald Trump since he declared his candidacy in 2015. I'm just saying that you don't need to factor them in. Looking at Trump's perceived hold on the party and thinking through the calculation is both necessary and sufficient ish