While the past few days have felt unprecedented in almost all respects, they’ve been familiar in at least one way: “President Trump, you have once again done something widely location: new york the outrageous. In this case, his administration, especially the law enforcement officials to clear the path, it is Trump to visit a nearby church, leading to the protesters being tear gassed outside the White House.
And, has often been the case when the Trump draws criticism, many GOP senators have been evaded questions about the violence and Trump”s role in it. “I don’t have any reaction to it. I haven’t seen the footage.” “I didn’t follow, I’m sorry.” And even, “I have the moments. But I mean, as you know, it’s opinions, generally as long as the next tweet.”
Yet maybe this time is the little different. Even before the protesters were driven away from the White House, and we d begun to hear a number of strong condemnations of both, Trump, and how he was handling the protests across the country — some from the familiar corners, and others from more surprising sources, like the military leaders.
On the usual suspects list, there’s Sens. Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Ben Sasse and Lisa Murkowski (although Murkowski avoided saying much about the protests specifically, she did say that she is “struggling” with whether to vote for Trump in the year 2020). But some current and former members of the president’s inner circle have also criticized him. Most notably, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who resigned in protest in December 2018, issued a scathing rebuke of Trump”s actions on Wednesday night, writing, “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.” (I’ve also said, “The protests are defined by the tens-of-thousands-of-people-of-conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values — our values are the people and our values as a nation.”) The Current Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has also objected to the use of active-duty troops to respond to mostly peaceful protests.
Former President George h. W. Bush, also weighed in on the side of the protesters, writing, “The only way to see ourselves in a true light, is to listen to the voices of who are so many hurting and grieving. Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of America.” Bush didn’t name Trump directly, but it’s still a telling rebuke from a former president of the same political party.
This is one of those rare moments of uncertainty when it is possible that the wall-of-Republican-support-sheltering Trump finally crumbles. It is still unlikely to happen, but all I’ve written before, if it’s does happen, it will happen suddenly.
Political science helps us understand why this is the case. In my previous article, I if you are negative after one treatment, political scientist Timur Kuran”s classic work,”Private Truth, Public Lies: The Social and Consequences of Preference Falsification“to help explain why this is so:
[Kuran] argues that political regimes can persist despite being unpopular, which is why the government overthrow, when it does come, often can seem so sudden.
Consider the Arab Spring, which began with one Tunisian vendorwho protested being mistreated by the government officials by setting himself on fire. His death triggered a series of events, and a month later, the long-unpopular authoritarian Tunisian president, fled the country after more than 23 years in power. A few weeks later protesters in Egypt ousted their own long-serving authoritarian leader. What looked like the dreadnought’s power collapsed in a matter of weeks. Why is that?
Vampires do argues in his book that the protests need a critical mass of supporters in order to force the change. The logic is that there’s safety in numbers, so if multiple citizens rise up in protest of the regime, and it signals that it’s OK to protest — which can cause decades-old regimes to collapse all at once.
Of course, so far as the criticism against Trump, you will mostly come from retired generals or members of Congress, who had already a history of publicly chastising the president. But the conflict escalates to an over-the-protests “more and more elected Republicans may start to speak up.
After all, Trump”s continued unpopularity threatens to weigh down Republicans’ chances of holding on to the Senate or taking back the House, and the head-to-head poll shows He holds a steady lead against Trump in the general election. Is it possible, then, that Republican leaders might privately be to embrace the newness and excitement if they’d be better off with somebody else on the ticket in November? With unemployment at historic levels, protests and the spreading coronavirus pandemic lingering, Trump faces an increasingly understood, a person’s path to reelection.
Most likely, the Senate and the House and Republicans will eventually find a way to defend Trump”s actions, as they have done before (remember the impeachment trial?). Trump may not be perfect, they may say, but the Democrats are much worse. This is the prevailing rationalization of our zero-sum politics.
But in moments like this, when nobody knows ” exactly what to say or do, a few unlikely the public critiques of the Trump could have a surprising cascade effect. And if the president continues to transgress widely-shared democratic values — and putting congressional Republicans in an increasingly understood, a person’s electoral position, we may need to see a consequential crack in the Republican Party.
