Trump’s 'grip' on the GOP is 'enduring but not universal': NYT editorial board

15 August 2023

A few days before United States Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith indicted ex-President Donald Trump on charges related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, NPR published results from a poll finding that Republican voters who "believe Trump has done 'nothing wrong' dropped 9 points in the last month, from 50% to 41%."

Now, after a Fulton County Superior Court has indicted the former president and 18 of his associates on racketeering charges related to their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, The New York Times (NYT) editorial board, in an op-ed published Tuesday, contends GOP "primary voters, in particular, are being presented with an opportunity to pause and consider the costs of" Trump's "leadership thus far, to the health of the nation and of their party, and the further damage he could do if rewarded with another four years in power."

The board writes:

While he is innocent until proven guilty, he will have to answer for his actions.

But almost certainly before then, he will have to answer to Republican voters. His grip on the party has proved enduring but not universal; while he is far ahead of the other candidates, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed that he is the choice of only 54 percent of likely primary voters. And about half of Republican voters told pollsters for Reuters/Ipsos that they would not vote for him if he was convicted of a felony.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

The NYT emphasizes the former president's "four indictments — which include more than 90 federal and state criminal charges implicating his official conduct during his term and acts afterward, as well as in his personal and business life — offer a road map of the trauma and drama Mr. Trump has put this nation through," and, "They raise questions about his fitness for office that go beyond ideology or temperament, focusing instead on his disdain for American democracy."

Quoting Protect Democracy attorney Kristy Parker, the board insists, "To assume that any prosecution of a political figure is political would, in effect, 'immunize all high-ranking powerful political people from ever being held accountable for the wrongful things they do. And if you do that, you subvert the idea that this is a rule-of-law society where everybody is subject to equal justice."

The editors write:

Time and again, Mr. Trump has demanded that Republicans choose him over the party, and he has exposed and exploited some genuine rifts in the G.O.P., refashioning the party to suit his own agenda. The party will have to deal with those fault lines and may have to reconfigure itself and its platform. But if Republicans surrender to his demands, they may find themselves led by a candidate whose second term in office would be even more damaging to America and to the party than his first.

Trump, the board notes, "has repeatedly offered Republicans a false choice: Stick by me, or the enemy wins. But a healthy political party does not belong to or depend on one man, particularly one who has repeatedly put himself over his party and his country. A healthy democracy needs at least two functioning parties to challenge each other's honesty and direction. Republican voters are key to restoring that health and balance."

Washington Examiner politics editor W. James Antle III argues in a CNN op-ed published Tuesday that Trump's insistence that his indictments prove "Democratic prosecutors, including the Justice Department under the current administration, are out to get him" may have "forced his closest rivals for the Republican nomination to more or less defend him, while his popularity with the base has made directly challenging him a nonstarter for all but a handful of low-polling candidates."

However, he writes:

But Trump and his supporters shouldn't take climbing poll numbers as a sign of invincibility, no matter how much conventional wisdom presents these prosecutions as a boost for the former president. Nominating a candidate with so many pending criminal charges would be inherently risky. This is true purely as a practical matter, regardless of what Republicans or anyone else think of the merits of the legal cases against him.

The United States' "image as a beacon of democracy," the Times editors conclude, "already badly tarnished by the Jan. 6 attack, may not survive the election of someone formally accused of systematically dismantling his own country's democratic process through deceit."

The editorial board's full op-ed is available at this link (subscription required). NPR's report is here. W. James Antle III's op-ed is here.

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