All The President's Men
Personal loyalty to Donald Trump is a vice to establishment types, but it should be considered a sign of political virtue
In the “post-Trump” era (really more of a between-Trump era), the idea of loyalty to Donald Trump has become something of an albatross around the neck of Congressional Republicans. It shouldn’t be that way. But this weird moral burden, completely contrived by the corporate press, has been internalized as a cardinal vice by many establishment pundits and politicians, and has even trickled down into the minds of some of his more capricious supporters. In order to provide some cover for voters, and a roadmap for candidates running on a Trumpian/America First platform (including anyone backed by the man himself), I will rebuff this line of attack. To do so, we must consider three points.
First of all, it isn’t necessarily the case that the loyalty displayed by these politicians was to Trump the man, but the agenda he put forth. The evidence for this is comprehensive; do a Twitter search of your favorite conservative media personality from 2015 to now. I’m sure most of them, especially the ones who didn’t back Trump right away, have said something to the effect of “I don’t/didn’t like Trump, but his policies were good for America.” Do a Google search of articles in Christian publications telling voters to look past Trump’s personal morality, because his policies will advance the cause of the Faith. You’ll find plenty, and analogies to both King David and Cyrus of Persia will abound. Or you can just your typical Trump-supporting family members (especially female ones); they’ll make no bones about their personal distaste for the man; but they liked his policies! It follows, therefore, that politicians probably have the same thoughts about Trump and the Trump agenda. They may not like his character, or his brash egotism, or his personal conduct after Charlottesville or J6 or pick-your-media-manufactured-political-cataclysm du jour, but they stood by him because his agenda did right by them and by their voters.
Second, even if it was personal loyalty Trump that these Republicans were displaying, good! Trump has done much good for America and for her people. And it was him, and his agenda doing the good. And Trump had to do much of it by himself. Previous Republicans promised to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but never followed through. Trump just went and did it. Much of the money that went to the construction of the border wall was done through financial wizardry, with Trump unilaterally moving already-appropriated funds around, because Republicans repeatedly refused to give him enough money to build the wall. Trump imposed a series of tariffs on goods coming from China. But as of April of this year, Republicans in the Senate are trying to roll them back. Trump’s agenda was his. He crafted it, and did his best to see it carried out, over the consternation of Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and the rest of the GOP establishment. It’s not the Republican agenda, it’s the Trump agenda. So Republicans who were loyal to Trump the man were perfectly right and good in doing so; because he did what their own “leadership” wouldn’t do.
Third, take a long hard look at the character of those supposedly putting “country over party” or “country over Trump,” etc.:
Adam Kinzinger was one of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. Since then, he has fallen for the “Ghost of Kiev” hoax, proudly gone on the Sunday talk shows to tout his support for gun control, and voted for the Democrats’ asinine virtue signaling bills protecting gay marriage and contraception post-Dobbs. Fortunately, Cryin’ Adam saw the writing on the wall (and a cushy CNN contributorship) and retired before he could be run out on a rail for flouting the will of his voters.
Michigan Congressman Peter Meijer voted to impeach Trump, just three days after being sworn in to his first term in office. He has since backed the gun control bill, the $40 billion in aid to Ukraine, the gay marriage bill, and spending bills. Fortunately, he got his comeuppance, losing his primary to Trump-endorsed John Gibbs.
Liz Cheney. Do I really need to say anything else? First of all, she doesn’t even live in the state she claims to represent. Second, she’s voted for every current thing under the sun this session: the $40 billion, codifying gay marriage, the gun bill, the bill protecting contraceptives, a vote to censure fellow Republican Paul Gosar; you name it, she voted YEA for it. And of course, she and Kinzinger are the only Republicans on the January 6th Committee. She also has a somewhat ironic personal fixation with Trump, a kind of Messiah complex that she is singlehandedly going to return the party to its pre-Trump “principled” loserdom.
These are just three of the more egregious examples out of the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment after J6, but in all three, the vote to impeach Trump was a precursor to them voting against the will of their own constituents. While spewing out sickening bromides about putting “country over party” or “loyalty to the Constitution over loyalty to Trump,” they actually put themselves over their country and their party, and betrayed the Constitution, by scorning the very people they are supposed to represent.
Trump exposed so much corruption in our institutions: government, media, the two major parties, etc. Really when you think about it, being “loyal to Trump” was standing against all the corruption in our politics. Standing against him was standing for the broken institutions facilitating our national decline. Really, loyalty to the institutions should be the albatross hung around the necks of Republicans and Democrats alike. It doesn’t have to be all Trump all the time; Trump is a man with flaws, and he is sometimes wrong, as we all are. But in the current state of our nation, genuine reformers are required, and loyalty to Donald Trump is a good litmus test of who is really going to put “country over Party
.