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If Donald Trump’s GOP primary opponents are really interested in defeating him, most of them have got an interesting way of showing it. Or rather not showing it.
The twice-impeached former president, in his words and deeds since descending the escalator at Trump Tower eight years ago to announce his first presidential bid, has made authoritarianism a core element of his political dogma. From embracing strongman leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, to vowing to jail his political opponents, to declaring the press to be a public enemy, and much more, Trump has proven himself not only unfit for public office but a threat to democracy itself.
The peril of another Trump administration — one bound by even fewer democratic guardrails — is as clear as the felony counts he faces for his role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost.
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Yet these alarming facts are barely mentioned by most of the candidates vying to beat him for their party’s nomination.
What does this say about the current state of the Republican Party when candidates like former United Nations ambassador and former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Vivek Ramaswamy, and others ignore their opponent’s biggest weakness? The only conclusion is that protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States is, in their view, no longer a presidential job requirement.
During last week’s GOP debate at the University of Alabama, only former New Jersey governor Chris Christie acknowledged the biggest threat Trump poses to the nation.
“I’m looking at my watch now, we are 17 minutes into this debate, and except for your little speech at the beginning, we’ve had these three acting as if this race is between the four of us,” Christie said to moderator Megyn Kelly while gesturing to Haley, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy.
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“They don’t want to talk about him,” Christie continued. “The fact of the matter is when you say the truth about somebody who is a dictator, a bully, who has taken shots at everybody, whether they’ve given him great service or not, over time, who dares to disagree with him, then I understand why these three are timid to say anything about him.”
Christie is correct that “there is no bigger issue in this race than Trump.” So why is he standing alone?
It seems, in part, because calling out Trump’s despotism doesn’t pay political dividends for Republicans. In fact, it’s often those who echo Trump’s dangerous rhetoric and tactics who make headlines and headway in the polls.
It’s why DeSantis rose to national prominence by, among other things, flying migrants to largely Democratic-voting locations like Martha’s Vineyard. It’s why Haley’s biggest swipe at Trump on the debate stage was about his administration’s policies on China. And it’s why Ramaswamy went even further, using his time in the debate not only to embrace Trump’s false claim of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, but also a false, dangerous, and racist conspiracy theory that was at the center of Nazi Germany’s ideology.
“The great replacement theory is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic Party’s platform,” Ramaswamy said, without being corrected by the debate’s moderators. He also said the 2020 election was “stolen by big tech.” Predictably, Trump later declared Ramaswamy the debate’s clear winner.
There are a few, but only a few, examples of Republicans who are willing to speak the truth about Trump.
“There’s no question he has authoritarian rulings and interests and notions which he will try to impose,” Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday.
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Citing Trump’s call to his supporters to descend on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to stop the counting of electoral votes as an example of Trump’s willingness to put personal power above his constitutional oath, Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, called the former president “dangerous for the country.”
“It was dangerous then, life was lost, we were embarrassed around the world — I mean, this was a tragedy,” Romney said. “And a number of things that he did in the last months of his presidency suggest what he’d do if he were elected again.”
Romney is right. Trump has said so himself.
“We love this guy,” Trump said of Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview he staged as counter-programming for the debate he skipped. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”
Trump’s opponents should take him seriously and literally. So why aren’t they?
It’s clear they don’t have the courage to ruffle feathers among his base, they don’t fully appreciate the danger such authoritarianism poses, or they plan to follow the same course — and are possibly bidding to be his pick as running mate. Whatever the case, their silence is not only irresponsible, it’s disqualifying.
Kimberly Atkins Stohr is a columnist for the Globe. She may be reached at kimberly.atkinsstohr@globe.com. Follow her @KimberlyEAtkins.
