This captures an essential tension about this moment. Many Republicans apparently remain deeply convinced that Trump and his preoccupations are an indispensable source of political energy for their 2022 campaigns. Yet coming revelations about Trump might keep rendering that energy more toxic in swing states and districts.
Two useful reports — one in Politico, the other in the New York Times — provide new information that illuminates that tension. Politico details “growing angst and concern” among Republicans about Trump’s ever-ballooning role in news cycles.
Some Republicans are urging the party to pivot away from defending Trump, Politico notes, to change the subject back to issues such as inflation. One GOP fundraiser describes the party’s mood about Trump as “enormous frustration.”
Republicans have adopted several strategies after the release of the redacted affidavit for the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search, which deepened our understanding of Trump’s misconduct and potential crimes associated with hoarding highly classified documents.
Some Republicans are blaming the media for hyping the revelations, per Politico. Others insist there’s something vaguely amiss about the timing of the search. Still others say the documents aren’t harboring serious secrets, which is contradicted by already-known facts.
But the responses mostly have a halfhearted quality. Among those Republicans, at least, gone is the full-throated rage that initially treated Trump as uniformly a victim and the search as wholly illegitimate.
Why? Well, as the Times piece documents, Trump is again a big story on terms unfavorable to Republicans. The political dynamic has shifted amid numerous factors: Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices overturning Roe v. Wade, revelations about Trump’s effort to destroy our democracy and, now, the drumbeat of devastating facts about his harboring of state secrets.
While holding the House will still be tough for Democrats, it’s now in play, and keeping the Senate is very plausible. As Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg tells the Times, the combination of Republicans initially running “toward MAGA” and Trump’s reemergence with a vengeance have given Democrats “more ammunition to label their candidates as extreme.”
Many of the aforementioned “frustrated” Republicans appear to agree. But here’s the rub: Some GOP candidates have a different theory of the case. They genuinely appear to see Trump and Trumpism as key sources of political energy and inspiration.
Take Blake Masters, the GOP nominee for Senate in Arizona. Masters is under fire for blaming racial diversity at the Federal Reserve for economic woes. Now, Masters has responded with a video that seems designed to capture a kind of unadulterated Trumpism:
Note that Masters says “fake news!” with a bombastic vehemence that appears to consciously imitate Trump. And Masters attacks Vice President Harris with the ugly claim that she is “so incompetent she can’t even get a sentence out.”
That’s gutter trolling, but it’s of interest. While Masters has tried to selectively sanitize his positions on abortion and the 2020 election, here he’s working overtime to capture the spirit and essence of Trump’s sheer abusiveness. It’s as though going all-in on such unapologetic derangement is itself a selling point that displays resolve…
Read More: Opinion | Rising GOP anger at Trump shows a deeper problem in the midterms
