'Bland, ho-hum' Trump endorsements show dangerous 'capitulation' to 'authoritarian goals'

Many right-wing Never Trump conservatives have argued that Republicans missed a golden opportunity to distance themselves from Donald Trump after the January 6, 2021 insurrection — but instead of throwing Trump under the bus and seriously rallying around another GOP candidate for the 2024 presidential election, they sheepishly held back on criticizing the former president.

In a 2022 interview with The Guardian, The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson — a Never Trumper and former GOP strategist who is supporting Biden's reelection campaign — predicted that the Republican Party establishment would ultimately "bend the knee" to Trump in the 2024 election. And sure enough, the scenario that Wilson predicted is playing out.

Many prominent establishment Republicans, from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) to Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), have endorsed Trump — legal problems, extreme statements, and all — over South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the only other Republican left in this year's GOP presidential primary.

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In a think piece published on February 9, The Atlantic's Mark Leibovich emphasizes that the Trump endorsements coming from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) and many others have a banal or "ho-hum" quality — and therein lies the danger. Endorsements from very establishment Republican Party figures, Leibovich warns, mask Trump's dangerously "authoritarian" agenda.

"Full acquiescence to Trump is now the most essential Republican 'ethic,' such as it is, or at least the chief prerequisite to viability in the party," Leibovich explains. "Yet the Republican Party now appears to have entered a new level of capitulation to Trump: a kind of ho-hum acceptance phase, where slavish devotion has become almost mundane, like joining a grocery line. There's a certain power in bland and seemingly harmless gestures from people who know better."

Far-right ultra-MAGA figures like Arizona's Kari Lake and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) supported Trump's 2024 campaign from the get-go. But the big shift, according to Leibovich, is all the endorsements he is getting from establishment Republicans who are ignoring Haley's campaign and accepting Trump's nomination as inevitable.

"Sure, Trump wasn't perfect," Leibovich sarcastically writes, "but what's a little violation, trauma, or national disgrace? Apparently, it still beats the alternative, Nikki Haley."

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Read Mark Leibovich's full article for The Atlantic at this link (subscription required).