Nine months into President Trump’s term in office as head of the U.S. Executive Branch, the populist movement that led him to power is shaking the very foundation of the Republican party.
The political fracture is relevant not only for the health of America’s two-party system, but also because the outcome determines the course of American leadership in the world.
In contrast to past presidents who championed democratic ideals and a global rules-based trading system, President Trump promotes economic nationalism, tighter borders, realpolitik and trade protection. Moreover, Trump’s verbal assaults on media outlets and his use of Twitter to attack political opponents and comment on foreign policy have some led members of his own party to assert that American democracy itself is at risk.
One of the biggest critics is Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In recent months, Sen. Corker has openly questioned Trump’s stability to lead as president, saying the president frustrates efforts of American diplomats abroad and debases the United States by telling lies.
“Unfortunately, I think world leaders are aware that much of what he says is untrue,” Sen. Corker said in media interviews as reported by The New Yorker. “Certainly, people here are, because these things are provably untrue. They are just factually incorrect, and people know the difference.”
This week, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake added his criticism, saying, “It is also clear to me for the moment that we have given in or given up on the core principles in favor of a more viscerally satisfied anger and resentment.”
In a 17-minute Senate speech in which he announced he would not seek reelection, Sen. Flake lamented that President Trump’s use of “personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institution, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency [and] the reckless provocations,” are reckless and dangerous to democracy. “The impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful backward-looking people,” he said.
The criticism by the senators is noteworthy for both its candor in criticizing a sitting president of the same party and because it comes from senators who are not seeking reelection.
‘Political Price to Pay’
Since President Trump won the party’s nomination in July 2016 followed by the national election last November, only a few members of his own party have spoken out against him. That has emboldened Trump affiliates like Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist who pushes a populist economic nationalist agenda as executive chairman of the right-wing Breitbart News Network.
“I have seen Jeff Flake standup for what he believes in knowing full well there would be a political price to pay,” said Sen. John McCain, also of Arizona.
Mr. Bannon has announced plans to oust current Republicans running in primary races for the 2018 midterm elections. “There’s a time and season for everything. And right now it’s a season of war against the GOP establishment,” Bannon said, at an October speech in Washington, D.C.
Flake would have faced a tough primary party challenge from Kelli Ward, a Trump supporter who challenged Sen. John McCain in the 2016 election. Ward, a former physician and state senator, won Bannon’s endorsement on Oct. 17.
Although he supported Trump on policies coming before the Senate, Flake drew the ire of the White House earlier this year when he published a book, Conscience of a Conservative, expressing grievance with economic nationalism, political disintegration and President Trump’s routine use of the words “fake news” to describe legitimate reporters. It was perhaps that book and the media interviews that followed that made him a political target. The senator, however, suggested otherwise. He said he simply could not run for reelection without sacrificing the values he supports.
“It’s difficult to win a Republican primary these days if you disagree with the president on anything or if you [do not] countenance his behavior, which I don’t think we ought to normalize,” Flake told CNN’s Jake Tapper Oct. 24. “We’re in a different time now.”
It’s a sign that America’s political landscape has perhaps forever changed as populists who brought President Trump to power eclipse the traditional conservatives in the Republican party.
Threats to Democracy
The criticism comes on the heels of an Oct. 19 speech by Former President George W. Bush who said American leadership has lost sight of its ideals and has failed to preserve and protect its democratic values. At an event honoring “the spirit of liberty” in New York City, Bush warned that:
“The great democracies face new and serious threats – yet seem to be losing confidence in their own calling and competence. Economic, political and national security challenges proliferate, and they are made worse by the tendency to turn inward. The health of the democratic spirit itself is at issue. And the renewal of that spirit is the urgent task at hand.”
While he did not name him directly, many media outlets suggested that his comments may have been directed at President Trump. However, Bush focused his speech on larger, longer-term trends threatening democracy. Those threats include the following:
- terrorism, outlaw regimes and nuclear proliferation;
- the hidden world of intelligence and surveillance;
- challenges to the “norms and rules of the global order” by Russia and China;
- an identity crisis in parts of Europe, economic stagnation and a resurfacing of ethno-nationalism;
- and in America, a declining public confidence in institutions, partisan conflicts that paralyze the governing class, a discontent among people who do not benefit from a changing economy and the return of isolationist sentiments.
“Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication,” Bush said. “We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times, it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together.”
Unity, Stocks and Tax Cuts
Asked about party turmoil, President Trump said the party is completely unified, especially now that everyone is focused on cutting taxes.
“It was almost a lovefest,” Trump said, of an Oct. 24 lunch meeting with Senate Republicans. “The fact is there was tremendous unity in that room, and we’re really unified. We’re really unified on what we want to do. We want tax cuts for the middle class. We want tax cuts for businesses to produce jobs.”
With full control of the House, Senate and White House, it is an historic opportunity for the party to enact legislation. And cutting corporate taxes, along with individual tax rates, has long been an objective they have wanted to achieve.
Asked by reporters about the intraparty conflict, Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican who ran against Trump in the primary and voiced criticism at the party’s convention, said he is focusing on the party’s agenda.
“We’ve got a job to do,” Cruz said. “And so all of this nonsense, I’ve got nothing to say on it. Everyone shut up and do your job is my view.”
Meanwhile, as the stock market surges in value, up by $5 trillion in the Dow Jones since Nov. 8, 2016, and the economy grows at an annualized rate of 3 percent, most Republicans seem content to do just that.
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