'They’re scared': Republicans 'frightened for their jobs' turn blind eye to Trump’s dictatorial fantasy
The Atlantic Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg on Monday described “a level of absurdity” in the 2024 presidential race as Republicans turns a blind eye to Donald Trump's promise to rule as dictator “for one day” should he win reelection.
The Atlantic’s January/February 2024 issue focuses on how a second Trump term “could shatter norms with the courts, education, the military, foreign policy, immigration, abortion rights, science, gender.” In the issue, The Atlantic editors warn “the next Trump presidency will be worse.”
Discussing the January/February issue with CNN’s Dana Bash, Goldberg jokingly noted the editors took the time to “put out a special issue, and then he goes and says it.”
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“We put a lot of work in there to try to prove that he has dictatorial tendencies and then he just goes ahead and says it,” Goldberg said. “It's kind of his superpower in a way. Unlike other politicians who, when they say something outrageous, they walk it back, he goes further.”
"This is part of a pattern,” Goldberg continued. “He neutralizes the serious criticism by embracing it and he overturns the traditional rules of political physics.”
“He's embracing this idea that he's going to be a dictator, and I think that American citizens who take politicians and politics seriously ought to consider the fact that the punitive nominee of one of the two major parties is promising to rule as a dictator,” Goldberg added. “I know he says, ‘for one day,’ I don't even know what that means … We are at a level of absurdity here, and he's telling us what he's going to do.”
Bash then played a clip of Republicans dismissing Trump’s promise to rule as a dictator, with reactions ranging from "it’s entertainment” to “Trump uses unique expressions when he explains things.”
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“Two quick points about the reaction that you played there from members of Congress,” Goldberg said. “The first is that you and I both know plenty of Republicans in Congress, and we know how they actually feel about Donald Trump. They are scared of Donald Trump. They are repulsed by him, they don't like antidemocratic language, most of them at least, but they are frightened for their jobs.”
Goldberg then offered a “second point” which described “a double standard” in how Republicans approach Trump’s language compared with how they interpret language from other political parties.
“Believe people when they tell you what they want to do,” Goldberg said.
“We already have January 6th as evidence that Donald Trump does not want to conform to the norms of democratic behavior,” Goldberg said. “And so, I find their dismissal disconcerting.”
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