Grievance and revenge
by Tom Sullivan
A Politico/Morning Consult poll may show a majority of Americans (52%) approve of Donald Trump’s impeachment, but not even gold-plating it will improve its image among Trumpers or the man himself.
Thursday evening on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” former executive vice president at the Trump Organization, Barbara Res predicted how Trump will react to being impeached.
“Once he gets through this, and he probably will,” Res said, shaking her head, “He will exact revenge on a lot of people. A lot of people.”
Elected Republicans know this. They fear Trump more than any occupant of the Oval Office since Lyndon Johnson, Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman explain in the New York Times.
After criticizing the president in a closed meeting of G.O.P. lawmakers, a colleague warned two-term Michigan congressman Dave Trott, “Dave, you need to know somebody has already told the White House what you said … Be ready for a barrage of tweets.”
From his handheld Death Star, Trump can destroy political careers on a whim. Republicans uneasy about his character and fitness for office have two choices: kowtow or retire. Trott chose the latter and left office in January. To cross paths with Trump was to invite retribution. Trump would insist on it.
Martin and Haberman write:
There is no market, he said, for independence. Divergence from Trumpism will never be good enough for Democrats; Mr. Trump will target you among Republicans, Mr. Trott added, and the vanishing voters from the political middle will never have a chance to reward you because you would not make it through a primary. That will be ensured in part by the megaphone the president wields with the conservative news media.
“Trump is emotionally, intellectually and psychologically unfit for office, and I’m sure a lot of Republicans feel the same way,” Mr. Trott said. “But if they say that, the social media barrage will be overwhelming.”
For Trump, all politics is personal. He may not know much else, but he tracks who praises or denounces him. with him, and he carefully tracks who on television is praising him or denouncing his latest rhetorical excess.
Mr. Trott recounted one of his most vivid memories of his time serving with Mr. Trump. It was the day in 2017 when House Republicans voted to repeal the A.C.A. and celebrated afterward at the White House.
Mr. Trott was one of the first lawmakers to enter the Oval Office after the Rose Garden celebration and he stood behind the president’s desk when Mr. Trump pulled out a sheet of paper.
“He already had a list of 20 people who had voted against him two hours earlier,” he recalled.
“This is a testament to organized cowardice, not actual power,” national security blogger Marcy Wheeler responded.
If Republicans have become the party of white grievance, Trump personifies it for his followers. They marinate in his meanness, Ashley Parker writes in the Washington Post:
“Trump is the worst within us, and he markets that worst as admirable,” said Stuart Stevens, a Republican operative and frequent Trump critic who was a senior adviser on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “He appeals to our darkest angels, not our better angels.”
Supporters excuse his personal attacks as counterpunching:
But by definition Trump is almost always punching down. His targets of derision are not only less powerful than a U.S. president, but many are among the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. He has mocked and attacked, among others, immigrants, minorities, women and a reporter with a physical disability.
“A dead guy or a widow or somebody who has a physical handicap or the wives of a candidate — the idea that he’s a counterpuncher or a tough guy has been a farce from the start,” said Tim Miller, a Republican operative and frequent Trump critic, who was a senior adviser on Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump punches down while kissing up to those with real power and the will to wield it. His pathology has rendered his party a cult of personality where rallygoers would cheerfully shout, “Yes, we’re all individuals!” at his prompting.
But power, like politics or the emperor’s clothes, is largely about perception. What allows Trump to rule a party of alpha males in-waiting is the perception of strength Trump works hard to sustain by being constantly on the attack. Branding is one of the few things Trump is good at. Once that brand begins to erode, so will his grip on power.
Impeachment has bruised both Trump’s ego and his image upon which his financial empire hangs. The Christianity Today post condemning Trump’s amorality has left a crack in Trump’s facade that may widen with time. His white evangelical base will find it harder to “pretend Trump’s wretchedly corrupt subversion of the country’s interests to his own simply isn’t happening, or that it’s absolutely fine.“
In the meantime, Trump will expend more of his energies seeking ways to exact revenge on a world that must be punished for never loving him enough.
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