Pictured above: President Donald J. Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell during a joint press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House in 2017. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
By Kate Murray ’22
Staff Writer
It has been over two months since Donald Trump left the White House, but his recent acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial signals that Trumpism may be here to stay.
Trump was acquitted on Saturday, Feb. 13, rendered not guilty of inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol at the beginning of January. While seven Republicans voted alongside Democrats to convict Trump — the greatest number of senators ever to vote on the impeachment of a president from their own party — an overwhelming majority of Republicans voted to clear him of the charge despite undeniable evidence that democracy (not to mention their lives) was threatened during the insurrection.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who voted to acquit the former president, was quoted in a speech directly following the verdict, saying, “There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.”
We have seen this kind of hypocrisy from the Republican Party time and time again. Such two-faced behavior came to be expected when Trump was in office because GOP politicians were reasonably afraid that they would be the next target of Trump’s bullying and risk losing reelection. When a new commander-in-chief took office, many were optimistic that congressional Republicans would finally be able to do their jobs with integrity now that they were out from under Trump’s tweeting thumb. Clearly, a large number of them are still performing a delicate balancing act: publicly condemning Trump while pandering to the powerful pro-Trump base through their voting record.
A few weeks ago, I attended a virtual lecture given by Seth Masket, a professor of political science at the University of Denver who specializes in political parties and polarization. The lecture, titled “The Future of the Republican Party,” highlighted Masket’s predictions of where the party will go with Trump out of the White House. When discussing the deep divides within the Republican Party, he asserted that they have less to do with ideology and more to do with an acceptance or rejection of democracy. In other words, it’s not the moderate-conservative split that is driving cleavages within the GOP as much as it is a commitment to upholding democratic principles versus a rejection of those principles.
As a young person who risks inheriting current political decisions for most of my life, it deeply concerns me that so many of members of Congress do not view the political violence that occured on Jan. 6 as a threat to our democracy. I am horrified that outspoken Trump allies in Congress such as Marjorie Taylor-Green, Lauren Boebert and Lindsey Graham seem to get away with spewing lies and conspiracy theories unscathed while the GOP doesn’t hesitate to label moderates like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney “traitors” for believing in democracy and accountability. But what terrifies me above all else are the millions of Americans who believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that white supremacist violence can go unnamed and unpunished. This is not the work of a few corrupt politicians — this is a new normal being established by American citizens.
There has been talk of the pro-Trump faction of the GOP splitting into their own party. However, I believe this is unlikely. First of all, Trumpist conservatives are currently benefiting from staying a part of the Republican Party. The last four years have proven that the insurgent factions have the capacity to drastically reshape mainstream parties, and this trend won’t stop any time soon.
On a more pragmatic note, the cost of splitting the party is too high. America’s winner-take-all election system with political primaries makes a third-party candidacy extremely unlikely. Perhaps from the perspective of the Trumpist faction, it would be much easier to restructure the GOP from the inside, especially if boosted by their advantage in the Electoral College — since Republican voters are so scattered throughout the nation, a GOP president is more easily able to win a presidential election without obtaining the popular vote.
While the exact directional future of the Republican Party remains unknown, one thing is certain: There are politicians and voters alike who are passionate about carrying on Trump’s legacy.