"I Can't Breathe" by Nancy OhanianOne of the themes here at DWT this cycle has been about the dangers of getting too chummy with conservative Republican #NeverTrumpers. They are, after all conservatives and oppose Trump because-- among other things-- he isn't. Many don't have to hold their noses to vote for Biden. He's just what they're looking for. In fact, from what I've seen, conservative #NeverTrump Republicans like Biden a lot more than progressives do. About 80% of progressives are going to hold their noses and vote for Biden, under no delusions about his utter unfitness for office, just thinking about the existential danger Trump is. The #NeverTrump's actually like the idea of a Biden presidency. Sure, they'd prefer someone like Paul Ryan, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, maybe even another overt racist likeTucker Carlson, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz-- one of their own-- but Biden's record of almost 5 decades is very comforting to them in the short run.These people will help us take down Trump. The enemy of my enemy is my friend... to a certain extent. Thanks for helping get rid of the fascist. Then go back to your own party and reform it, but don't try to move the Democratic Party even further right than it has already drifted since Arkansas conservative Bill Clinton managed a hostile takeover in 1992.In an OpEd for TruthOut this week, Beware of Anti-Trump Republicans Who Endorse Joe Biden, William Rivers Pitt agreed. He wrote that "A stampeding herd of 'anti-Trump' Republican organizations and PACs has flooded the zone with ads attacking Trump and endorsing Biden. If beating "Donald Trump in November is your main thing, this would appear to be only good news. I am forced to wonder, however, what the real intent is behind this sudden solidarity after three long years of near-silence from the deeply compromised 'Never Trump' crew.""Trump," he continued, "is the best campaign spokesman Joe Biden could ever wish for, because Trump will not stop damaging himself, ever. He is incapable of staying out of the spotlight, has no interest in talking points or strategy, and almost never knows what he is talking about when he starts flapping his gums at the cameras. His ceaseless lies about everything from Russian bounties on U.S. troops to the uprising to the pandemic are a feature, not a bug. In the midst of this maelstrom, Biden pops up every so often like some grandfatherly Jack-in-the-box to remind people that, whatever else he may be, he is not that guy. He has out-raised Trump for the second month in a row, while Trump’s own campaign spends its money on ads intended only to assure the president that he’s a great guy and everything is fine."
All the momentum is on Biden’s side at present, and Trump is only going to help him as we lurch toward the reckoning in November. So forgive me for being leery of this abrupt tidal wave of Biden support from Republican-based organizations. It puts me in mind of the old joke about the French aristocrat who sees an angry mob run by and says, “I must find out where my people are going, so I may lead them.”The newest entry into the Republican anti-Trump push is named 43 Alumni for Biden. It is a collection of hundreds of former campaign and administration members who worked for George W. Bush, the war criminal 43rd president. A list of members is not available so far as I can glean, but the group boasts a number of former Bush Cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking members whose names I’d love to know. Rumsfeld? Ashcroft? Rove? Cheney? Such is the possible character of Biden’s new allies.“Whether you worked in the earliest days of the 43rd Administration or sprinted to the finish in January 2009, you know a thing or two about serving the grand ideals and exceptional people of our country,” reads the 43 Alumni for Biden endorsement. “Together we saw compassion in action, strength on display and the steady leadership of a true statesman who inspired us to meet some of America’s greatest challenges.”I don’t have time to fully parse the freight of “Oy vey” in that paragraph; if you lived through the scabrous eight years of the Bush administration, you don’t need me to tell you how much unrefined bullshit is slathered on the words “compassion,” “steady leadership” and “true statesman.” Those hundreds of “43 Alumni” aided and abetted a murderous smash-and-grab robbery of an administration, and now they’re piling in behind Biden exactly when he does not need their help.Another Republican group that has been throwing hot shade at Trump is The Lincoln Project. The ads produced by this organization have been singularly brutal and ruthlessly timely, and Trump the TV fanatic is well aware of them. Each time another Lincoln Project ad airs, Trump Twitter goes seismic. The Lincoln spots are masterpieces of inflicted political pain, and further proof that conservatives are better at making killer ads than the Democrats ever were or will be.Many who oppose Trump have rejoiced at the way these ads have been flaying him, but it cannot be forgotten that this same gleefully lethal energy also went into creating and distributing the GOP’s racist Willie Horton ad attacking Michael Dukakis in 1988, and the wildly truthless swift-boat ads attacking John Kerry in 2004. With friends like these, etc....[T]hose working to get Trump gone must be deeply wary of this new “help.” These are the people whose policies and go-for-the-jugular campaign ethos made President Donald Trump possible, or even inevitable, in the first place. Here they are now, leaping on the Biden bandwagon in hopes we all forget the blood and tears soaking their hands.Furthermore, if these right-wing organizations do manage to make a notable difference in the November outcome, they are going to think they are owed something for that assistance, and anything that pushes Biden even further to the right is a menace on its face for anyone seeking genuine progressive change.Simply put: Never, ever forget who it is you’re dealing with here. These groups do not oppose Trump because of his policies. They oppose Trump because he is bad for the Republican brand, full stop. The enemy of your enemy in this case is not your friend, at all. It feels too much like the Scorpion and the Frog all over again, and folks by now should be heartily wary of getting stung.
Yesterday, super prominent #NeverTrumper Bill Kristol, writing at the NeverTrump Daily Journal Bulwark, tried to appeal to "those who have not been opponents of Donald Trump... those who, for whatever mixtures of reasons and motives, have until now reluctantly supported or tolerated him." He wants them to use July 4th and what it stands for to help them become "former Trump supporters." And he tells them even if they are too reflexively partisan to back Biden, they have an alternative, "His name is Mike Pence." Here's where these #NeverTrumpers show what they're made of and who they are. "[I]t is self-evident that it would be much better for the country if Donald Trump were out of office for the next six months, and if he had no chance to be president for the next four years. A President Pence for the next several months-- even with the possibility of a President Pence for the next four years-- would be a good outcome for all Americans." Yeah, so not our friends. Instead he has a game plan:
Serious and patriotic men and women who have been Trump supporters could go to Donald Trump privately and tell him that he’s done whatever good he can do. They could tell him that it’s time to resign and to turn over both the reins of government and the 2020 Republican nomination to his vice president.If Donald Trump ignores them, serious and patriotic men and women who have been Trump supporters could urge delegates to the Republican convention to withhold their votes in this emergency from Donald Trump, and could provide legal and political help when the Trump campaign claims those delegates are bound.If that doesn’t seem feasible, serious and patriotic men and women who have been Trump supporters could simply announce their support for Joe Biden now. If a sizable number of major figures did so, it would make Trump something like a lame duck and might force him from the race. Even if he refused to withdraw, it would weaken his hold on Republicans on the Hill and on his own administration, and make it harder for him to do substantial damage over the next several months. And since Trump could do substantial damage in using the executive power of the federal government to affect the November election, either beforehand (as in his attempt last year to use Ukraine to damage his opponent) or after (by calling results into question, creating chaos and a crisis of legitimacy, and the like), weakening Trump even if he stays in office would be no small thing.So the best option would be a Trump who has resigned from office. Second best would be a Trump denied re-nomination. Third best would be a weakened and then defeated Trump.Those who have previously been Trump supporters could help produce one of these outcomes. They should. For Donald Trump has surely proven himself, even to those who wished him well and hoped for the best, to be, to quote the Declaration, “unfit to be a ruler of a free people.”There is no reason for patriotic Trump supporters to continue enabling him. There would be a portion of honor in helping us get beyond him.
I'll take a great big pass on that strategy. What would be healthy for the country is a massive November rejection of Trump, Trumpism, fascism, authoritarianism and the Republican Party. And that's what's coming, Bill Kristol and his friends on board or not. There's nothing that would make me cast a ballot for Biden-- nothing-- but there is one thing that I like about him: he promised (though I don't necessarily believe him) that he will not pardon Trump. Pence would, of course. What would be healthy for America-- more healthy than anything I can think of short of a Bernie presidency-- would be to see a Trump trial and to subsequently see Trump die in prison, the way Al Capone did.