Say The Words
The Six Words DC Insiders Can't Say.
I’ve described the political life cycle of the Donald Trump donor class before, at some length.
TLDR; the donor class will stick with Trump once the primary ends. They’ll put aside their political, moral, aesthetic, social, and other reservations and build an elaborate construct reasons for going back to the horror they promised they’d never support again.
Now, we’re going to explore an even more pernicious set of behaviors from former Trump supporters and activists.
The Life Cycle of the Washington Insiders
Many former Trump aides say he shouldn’t be president. Will it matter?
The answer is…it could, but likely won’t because 95% of them will be too fearful to speak it aloud.
These former Trump aides — and I wrote about them in both books, a hundred articles, and they’ve been covered in the mainstream press in detail — all have on critical failure mode; sure, they’re willing to say Trump shouldn’t be President. They can’t deny their lived experience, their personal collisions with his corruption and mental instability, and their firsthand knowledge of the danger he poses to the nation.
In varying degrees, they’ve admitted Trump wasn’t just a bad President, but a danger to America. Now, some are repeating their warnings, but failing to complete the mission.
Their failure comes for their fundamental unwillingness to for once put country over party and say The Words:
“I am voting for Joe Biden.”
Feel free to modify it to taste, but that’s the real test.
They don’t get to expiate their sins and gain political or personal redemption unless they break the final seal. They aren’t forgiven until they take the courageous step of severing the possibility of a return to Trump’s good graces.
Some…a very small handful…have done so. But so many, like John Kelly in the Washington Post article cited above, believe that their testimony won’t change the election, so they’re given a pass for inaction and clarity.
They’re right; their statements that Trump was a bad, horrible, evil, dangerous buffoon who killed 500,000 Americans from mishandling COVID, was a lapdog and bootlick to any random dictator who walked in the door, and who drank the blood of puppies is to the MAGA base old and boring news. (I made up the part about puppy blood, but if Trump said he drank puppy blood, every MAGA would go Cruella De Ville in a hot minute.)
The base voters know they’re in bed with the Devil. The prefer it that way. For the base, the transgression is the action.
Where it can make a difference is in the pool of 7-11% of the voters who are behavioral Republicans but who now up for grabs politically. Why does it matter? Because those Republicans are always fighting the nesting instinct.
The Nesting Instinct
Republicans always want to go back to the nest. Always. The tribalism of the MAGA GOP is more intensely committed than the most devoted cult followings of the most charismatics fanatics.
These voters tend, broadly speaking, to be more educated and more tuned to the social signal we used to call “shame.” They’re embarrassed by Trump, discomforted by his manic cruelty and reckless language…something even more pointed in this election cycle. They looked for home in Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, but those options are fading.
In those cases, the leadership, public testimony, and courage of some of the people closest to Trump in his first Administration might help these more moderate Republican voters find comfort and validation in joining them, not only in opposing Trump, but in supporting Joe Biden.
Will this move millions upon millions of voters? Of course not, but 2024 will be a game of very, very small numbers, and in an Electoral College knife fight, we need all the numbers we can get.
The Liars
A non-trivial fraction of the people who have publicly and privately been critical of Trump will break bad in the end. Sure, some will be couched in the “Trump isn’t perfect but Biden is a senile satanic socialist.” You can add in whatever MAGA MadLib you like, but the liars are already looking for the right phrasing and timing to jump back into the Trump pool.
Don’t be shocked by this. Trump will enjoy their agony, toying with them like a cat slowly dismantling a spider, and they’ll have little hope of ever being back in his actual circle again. They’ll jump back to him because the tribal incentives and pressures are simply too much for most to bear. As I’ve said before, it’s damn hard to leave your tribe’s campfire.
Ironically, many who take the lie-and-flip strategy will be seen by the Washington media as crafty insiders and long-game political players. In the pre-Trump era? Perhaps. Today? Not so much.
The Excuses
“That’s an excuse, not a reason,” was one of my father’s most crisp and cutting rejoinders to excuses. Excuses were, to put it mildly, not acceptable or accepted in my family.
They may loathe and fear Trump, but even those who go public will likely make their cases elliptically, quietly, and — worst of all — anonymously.
They won’t say The Words, when those words actually might make a difference.
Almost every one of theses former appointees is in Washington’s matrix of power, money, and influence…and they like it that way.
Instead, they will have excuses, not reasons. Those excuses will be baroque, colorful, and solipsistic to a degree and scale, but in the end it all comes down, not to integrity or security, but Mammon.
“If I thought it would make a difference, I’d be more willing to do it. But you’re taking a lot of financial risks, and I haven’t seen any evidence it really matters.”
It matters.
The painful admission they’re more afraid for their bottom lines than the country tells you as much about their shortcomings as it does about Trump’s.
Until they will say I Will Vote for Joe Biden and actually do something about President Biden’s reelection then they’re anti-democracy and pro-authoritarian. There is no middle ground. They cannot believe their bottom line will save them it won’t.
We are back at the sacred honor time. Where will you pledge your allegiance and loyalty
Rick, these people are ALL despicable, every single one of them, from George W to Mitch M to John Kelly and all the way down. The blood of our country is on their hands, every single one of these cult GOP'ers. History will judge every single one of them. "The sins of the fathers will be visited on the children, to the third and fourth generations." If DJT is elected by vote, or installed by theft or violence, as our next president, we are visiting something terrible on our children and grandchildren(I am 70 and have both!) Every single decent R "leader" should say "I am voting for Joe Biden because I love my country and do not want to allow the USA to become a dictatorship where enemies are punished by death, imprisonment, or God knows what." It is coming, I truly believe that. We really may be lost as a functioning democracy, or even a free country. We really are. We can survive an old and even senile or even dead Joe Biden. We really can. We cannot survive one more minute of DJT or one of his acolytes. Keep sounding the alarm, and please pray some of these R "leaders" wil speak that truth and vote out loud.