Donald Trump’s recent endorsement of Dr. Mehmet Oz in the Republican primary race for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania led to a vocal backlash from the right. Breitbart’s Joel Pollack wrote, “This endorsement could divide MAGA in the only way that matters: he could lose America First conservatives over it.”
That remains to be seen. But I do think that if the GOP moves on from Trump in 2024, the backlash over the Dr. Oz endorsement may help us understand how it happened.
Trump cannot be defeated by a frontal attack. Everyone in the Republican Party who has tried that has failed. Trump may be vulnerable, however, to a specific kind of flanking maneuver. And the current stream of criticism may provide some clues as to how that maneuver might be executed.
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Look at the kinds of criticism Trump is enduring from the right. Sean Parnell, the former Trump-backed candidate in the race (who dropped out amid abuse allegations), said he was “disappointed” by the endorsement, adding that “Oz is the antithesis of everything that made Trump the best president of my lifetime.”
This sentiment was echoed by Dave Ball, chairman of the GOP in Washington County, Pennsylvania. “I think that President Trump very, very seldom does anything that’s not thought out and doesn’t have a very reasoned and logical basis, but, for whatever reason, in this particular instance, he chose to ignore all of that and endorse Oz,” Ball told the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito. “People have been calling me all day and asking, ‘What the hell was he thinking?’”
Why would a great/logical president make such a mistake? Conservative writer Erick Erickson hypothesized, “Donald Trump’s staff is sabotaging Trump by convincing him to make the worst possible endorsements.”
This theory was echoed by Rep. Mo Brooks, who recently had his Trump endorsement rescinded. “This is happening because Trump’s surrounded himself by staff who are on McConnell’s payroll & hostile to the MAGA agenda. Everybody telling Trump who to endorse in primaries works for The Swamp,” Brooks said. “They played him. Again.”
Shouldn’t that be a dealbreaker? I mean, if candidate Trump can be bullied or tricked, then can’t that also happen to President Trump?
The notion that Trump is being pushed into these endorsements by staff would also seem to be undercut by the fact that David McCormick—the hedge fund executive who is also running for Senate in Pennsylvania—hired Hope Hicks, Stephen Miller, and other Trump loyalists, precisely for this reason.
Details don’t matter. Like communism, Trump can never fail. He can only be failed.
The lengths Republicans go to make excuses for Trump echoes the old “If only Comrade Stalin knew” trope—which describes why peasants continue to love their leader, despite enduring atrocities and starvation.
It’s frustrating to watch, but considering the extent of Trump’s hold on the GOP, any step forward is positive.
Trump’s political power is derived from highly loyal Republican primary voters. Hitting Trump from the left doesn’t move them. Nor does attempting to shame them for supporting his outrageous behavior. But as people on the right begin to normalize criticizing Trump (albeit, couched in rhetoric blaming others), another possibility opens up: Moving on from Trump.
I know, after everything that’s happened, it still seems unrealistic to believe that Republican voters will disavow Trump. Doing so would serve as a tacit admission that they backed the wrong horse in 2016 and 2020.
But what if these Republicans were given permission to say Trump was a great president, but the opposition hates him too much? The libs would never let him succeed—heck, they stole the presidency from him in 2020, such voters might imagine.
Or maybe they’d surmise that Trump was great, a legend, in fact. But it’s time to find a younger alternative.
They could also pivot to: Trump created a movement that will survive him. But he’s getting older, less “tough,” and besides, Ron DeSantis is less chaotic and better equipped to actually win the culture wars.
The candidates who are hoping to supplant Trump can’t say this, of course. But the commentators slamming Trump over his Dr. Oz endorsement can do it (just as, in a way, they already are).
Trump has literally been called evil, authoritarian, and likened to Hitler. And yet, those criticisms only made his stranglehold on the GOP base even stronger. But the idea that he’s past his sell-by date—that “it’s time to move on”—that’s got to be terrifying for Trump, as he imagines a triumphant return to the White House.
If “moving on” becomes an acceptable theme among Republican voters (the same folks who seem willing to vote against Trump’s endorsed candidates, even as they praise him), then Trump remains a hero and future Republicans will stand on his shoulders. But his own political fortunes would be toast.
What I’m saying is, there’s a way for Republican voters to retire Trump in a way that preserves his ego and allows Republicans to save face. And if giving him a gold watch is what it takes, then everyone should chip in.
