If you’re seeking for reasons why Republicans continue to support Donald Trump as their preferred presidential candidate — he has a 58-21 percent advantage over Ron DeSantis in a Reuters/Ipsos post-indictment poll — you’re in luck.
He’s channelled the white working class’s economic and cultural frustrations… While in office, he produced an anti-abortion Supreme Court and significant tax cuts… His attacks on a variety of targets warm the hearts of his fans, shielding him from second thoughts regardless of how serious the evidence of flaws in his character, temperament, and judgement.
Let me suggest another reason for his current invulnerability, one that is so self-evident as to be embarrassing: Many Republicans see Donald Trump not as a presidential contender, but as the president. Parties also do not depose their presidents.
For over seven years, Donald Trump has existed on a plane so far beyond political conventions that analysing him through traditional frames of reference is nearly impossible. But, if we can ignore his bizarre behaviour — his former chief of staff, John Kelly, described him as “the most flawed individual I have ever met” — there’s one component of Trump’s candidature that would be eye-opening on its own. Trump is the only ex-president in more than 130 years to seek a rematch with his defeated opponent.
There are numerous nations where combatants face each other repeatedly. In France, Emmanuel Macron and Marine LePen faced off in an election last year, five years after their first meeting, with similar results; such rematches are usual in legislative systems. But what about here?
In 1896 and 1900, the famous populist William Jennings Bryan challenged President William McKinley and lost both times; the next rematch was Dwight Eisenhower vs. Adlai Stevenson, which Ike won in 1952 and 1956. Since Grover Cleveland reclaimed the White House from Benjamin Harrison in 1892, a defeated president has attempted to depose the president who ousted him. (In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt campaigned against William Howard Taft in an intraparty contest between erstwhile allies. In 1940, Herbert Hoover attempted a comeback against FDR, but was met with lukewarm support from Republicans (he did not secure the nomination). The notion of an ex-president openly campaigning for the presidency is unprecedented in modern history.
What makes this even more unusual is Republicans’ attitude towards the 45th president. Prior to the 2020 election, every defeated incumbent except one (Gerald Ford) has lost the White House decisively. Taft finished third in 1912, trailing only Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt, with a total of eight electoral votes. Hoover won only six states in 1932, losing by 18 points in the popular vote. Jimmy Carter was defeated 489-89 in the electoral vote, winning only six states. With these results, defeated presidents would have had a difficult task convincing their party to give them another shot. They were losers, as Trump might describe it.
Trump’s popularity among Republicans is quite different. Sure, Trump lost the popular vote by seven million votes in 2020, but Republicans can point to the razor-thin margins in the (also decisive) Electoral College count, where a shift of 44,000 votes in three states — Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona — would have resulted in a 269-269 tie, sending the election to the House of Representatives, where a majority of delegations would have likely given Trump the presidency.
That’s only part of the picture; Republicans feel the election was rigged and that Trump is the legitimate president by a roughly two-to-one ratio. Even as his popularity rating among all voters falls below 30%, his favorability rating among Republicans maintains at or above 80%.
In some ways, the Republican base sees Trump less as a presidential candidate and more as the true president, deposed by fraud. This is despite the evident lack of evidence of electoral fraud, which several Fox pundits admitted privately despite what they told their viewers, as shown by the Dominion lawsuit.
Furthermore, history demonstrates that political parties do not just fire their leaders, even when their chances of success are minimal. Chester Arthur was the last president to be denied renomination in 1884 (Ronald Reagan came close to unseating Ford in 1976; Ford, like Arthur, was an unelected president). Given the bizarre nature of the Trump era, it almost seems natural for Republicans to rally behind their “president,” whom they believe was the true winner the previous time around.
All of this being said, is it really necessary to point out that this is not a prediction for who will win the Republican nomination? It’s absolutely feasible that one, two, or three indictments — for crimes far more serious than paying hush money to a porn star — might sway Republican voters. Perhaps a widespread campaign among GOP officials claiming that a Trump candidature would doom the party to defeat in November might be effective (albeit this would necessitate Trump’s opponents actually mentioning his name while making that case).
For the time being, though, many Republicans appear to regard Donald Trump as not only their voice or advocate, but also their president.
