Donald Trump is the real and only man al leadership of the Republican Party. The indictment of the former president in New York has galvanized a lost GOP, tenacious in defending its leader who is the victim of a “persecution” by the Democrats. A fight that is oppressing the integrity of the judiciary, questioned by the Republican majority in Congress with the presidency of the justice commission.
GOP: in the hands of The Donald
In the US, one remains the same sharp polarization, fueled by paroxysmal tones. The Republican Party is partly responsible for this decline in civil and political debate, but the watershed was 2016. After Trump’s election, internal dissent was virtually silenced. Parliamentarians and important exponents who during the primaries made heavy attacks on the New York tycoon underwent a Kafkaesque metamorphosis, emerging later among the most loyal supporters. From Texan Ted Cruz to the veteran Lindsey Grahamthe latter a former friend of Joe Biden, the list of associates of The Donald is almost endless.
The Trump presidency has never been the object of criticism within the Grand Old Party: those who have tried have been marginalized, forced to leave and in some cases expelled. It is an example of this Jeff Flake, former Arizona Senator nominated by Biden as Ambassador. OR Steve Schmidtformer spin doctor of Bush, Schwarzenegger and McCain, founder along with his other conservative colleagues of Lincoln Project, a nominally Republican campaign committee, but a staunch opponent of Trumpism. And while the Party moved markedly to the right, a more subtle but equally significant phenomenon occurred within the Democrats, increasingly sensitive to progressive causes.
However, these two shifts cannot be equated. In fact, despite having moved to the left, the Dems have never embraced extreme and anti-democratic ideals. The US right, on the other hand, bent on the will of a single possible candidate, is changing in an authoritarian and subversive direction. The tragic events of Capitol Hill, where the country’s democratic stability was first and foremost at risk. Despite the steadfastness of some – it is worth mentioning the strict independence of the conservative senator Mitch McConnellrecurring target of Trump’s insults, guilty of having condemned the attempted insurrection on the Capitol -, the fate of the Republican Party is indecipherable.
DeSantis slumps in the polls
The creature of Lincoln and the abolitionists is turning, in fact, into a personal party, no longer conditioned by the free choices of its voters, but by the temperament of a man called Donald Trump. Before the former president was arrested, someone had the illusion of being able to re-found him with a new face, younger but no less combative: Ron DeSantis. Also targeted by his political “godfather” (Trump is said to have decided to support him in 2018 after casually eyeing a photo of him while aboard Air Force One), DeSantis in 2023 was growing dangerously in the polls, on the strength of a plebiscitary re-election at the helm of his state.
However, the governor of Florida has made mistakesFirst, he wavered on support for Ukraine, declassifying the war with Russia as a “territorial dispute”, but immediately backed down. Then, once pressed on the eventual extradition of Trump from Florida to New York, accused the prosecutor who is investigating the former president and announced that he did not want to collaborate with the authorities if he received an extradition request, siding with his party partner. This attitude appeared as an admission of inferiority with respect to his potential opponent and consequently DeSantis, trying to pursue the Trumpian electorate, it plummeted in the polls.
The Republican Party at a crossroads
Trump’s triumph, determined to run as a candidate even from prison, seems inevitable, even more so if no one proves capable of blocking his third ascent in view of the Milwaukee convention in 2024. Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy, the other candidates officially in the primary race, are unable (or perhaps unwilling) to be incisive in their rallies. With l’incognita Mike Pence ready to sow further uncertainty at any moment, especially if the former vice president of the United States were really to testify against Trump in the Capitol Hill proceedings. And in the meantime, the issues, from abortion to weapons to the war in Ukraine, remain pending, allowing Biden and the dem to impose their position in the media flow almost as a side dish to the judicial affairs of the former Republican president.
The future of the Republican Party will depend on the ability of its members to re-establish a leadership, but less vertical, hierarchy. Identifying an ideology in a person is a gamble that can lead to the unlikely establishment of an illiberal system or to its collapse. With Trump still at the helm, the crisis is only postponed.
Cover photo EPA/JUSTIN LANE