The world is fascinated by Donald Trump, but I am not. Trump is Trump, a hyper-well-known, mostly transparent and utterly mundane personality. I am fascinated by his supporters, those astonishing Republicans who chose a sketchy and flamboyant real estate developer to be president of the United States in 2016, then stuck close by him through thick and thin, and now endorse his claim of an international plot to steal the 2020 election.
As the Trump presidency ends, it is clear that a majority of Republicans have abandoned their party's historic policies and temperament.
Policies: As then-House speaker Paul Ryan put it, Trump won in 2016 because he "heard a voice out in this country that no one else heard." Trump rejected significant elements of the previously dominant movement conservatism in favor of a folk nationalism in the tradition of Andrew Jackson. Nicholas M. Gallagher explains in National Review: "Jacksonians characteristically emphasize anti-elitism and egalitarianism while drawing a sharp distinction between members of the folk group and those outside it."
 Pres. Trump celebrates Pres. Jackson in the Oval Office. |
Domestically, Jacksonians are tough on crime, espouse traditional social views, and want government aid for themselves. Internationally, they are nationalist ("MAGA") and support a strong military but reject nation-building or paying for a U.S.-led global order. Trump's dismissal of traditional conservative positions was clearest in his economic protectionism and his hostility toward European allies.
Temperament: Before Trump, Republicans of different types (country-club, social conservative, libertarian, Jacksonian) near-universally agreed on a code of behavior that emphasized civility, maturity, morality, rationality, and tradition. Democrats were ever the hotheads, Republicans the adults. Contrast the Democrats' 1968 riot on the streets of Chicago with the Republican chaos within the Detroit convention hall in 1980. Occupy Wall Street engaged in obscenities and defecated on a police car while their Tea Party counterparts remained polite and law-abiding.
 An "Occupy Wall Street" enthusiast defecates on a police car. |
But decades of Leftist dominance over education, the media, the arts, and the "deep state" left a great swath of Republicans bad-tempered. Out with the old code of civility, etc. – instead, outrage, impatience, anxiety, defiance, anger, and pugnacity now rule. Despising the Left so vehemently, many Republicans wave away Trump's personal faults as "fake news" and cherish his luridly vulgar, egomaniacal personality as a sign of authenticity and effectiveness.
Ronald Reagan popularized the Republicans' 11th Commandment, "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican" but Trump's supporters cheered his taunts of rival primary candidates ("Little Marco Rubio," "Lyin' Ted Cruz") and even his mocking John McCain for bravely enduring five years in a North Vietnamese prison ("He's not a war hero. ... I like people who weren't captured"). They revel in Trump's attacks on the government and the media, celebrating these as indispensable to resist the Left's depredations. The most extreme acolytes showed him fidelity by punching opponents at rallies and storming the Capitol.
"Republican mob" was once an oxymoron. Now it's a reality.
Rather than esteem the electoral process, with its sacred if informal concession speeches, the mob in 2020 developed baroque conspiracy theories about election fraud. A legal case presented to the Supreme Court of the United States claimed the statistical improbability of Joe Biden's victory to be minuscule – 1 over a number with 60 digits. Rejecting the learned conclusions of judges and the considered opinion of conservative analysts, the mob dismisses Republicans who deny its fantasies as RINOs and weaklings.
 Randy Weber, a Republican congressman from Texas, on Texas' secession from the United States. |
The mob's emergence raises deep questions. Does it mark a momentary aberration or a seismic change? Might it split the Republican party? What should one make of seemingly fantastical talk about a conservative secession?
No one knows, but the world's oldest democratic republic faces an internal danger – especially when the far-Left is surging – potentially greater than at any time since the Civil War, one that can degrade domestic life and radically reduce the country's global influence.
Personally, I can imagine belonging to a Jacksonian party but not to a Republican mob. Until something that resembles my Republican Party comes back, this conservative will remain an independent.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) joined the Republican party in 1972, served in four Republican administrations, and quit the Republican party in 2016. © 2021 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
Jan. 15, 2021 addenda: (1) An Axios-Ipsos poll looks at self-identified Trump supporters and traditional Republicans, finding these number 36 and 56 percent, respectively. As the graphic at right indicates, it also polls their views on three issues, whether Trump makes the Republican party better, whether he should run in 2024, and whether he should continue to contest the 2020 election.
(2) The New York Times documents the grip of Trumpism on the rising generation of Republican officeholders.
In Cleveland County, Okla., the chairman of the local Republican Party openly wondered "why violence is unacceptable," just hours before a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol last week. "What the crap do you think the American revolution was?" he posted on Facebook. "A game of friggin pattycake?"
Two days later, the Republican chairman of Nye County in Nevada posted a conspiracy-theory-filled letter on the local committee website, accusing Vice President Mike Pence of treason and calling the rioting a "staged event meant to blame Trump supporters."
And this week in Virginia, Amanda Chase, a two-term Republican state senator running for governor, maintained that President Trump might still be sworn into a second term on Jan. 20 and that Republicans who blocked that "alternative plan" would be punished by the president's supporters.
"They've got Mitch McConnell up there selling out the Republican Party," Ms. Chase, who spoke at the protest in Washington last week, said in an interview. "The insurrection is actually the deep state with the politicians working against the people to overthrow our government."
(3) For examples of the Republican mob in action, see Sam Brodey, "'He Won't Last Until the Primary': Republicans Who Voted to Impeach [Trump] Getting Death Threats."
