Trump, GOP headed to splitsville

Bad marriages usually lead to ugly divorces, and that’s where the GOP is heading.

After Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination in 2016, the word went forth on the right: It’s a binary choice. You’re either for Hillary or you’re for Trump. I never agreed with this reasoning, but in a two-party system the claim was defensible.

There were left-wing and right-wing versions of this all-or-nothing mentality, the former requiring total resistance to all things Trump, the latter total support. But it was the right-wing version that probably cost Trump the election. And it’s now threatening to tear apart the GOP.

On cable TV, talk radio and right-wing web platforms that dedicated themselves to round-the-clock Trump support, Trump’s minor successes were celebrated as unprecedented victories. His major successes were offered as proof of the president’s almost superhuman qualities. His failures were usually explained in one of two ways. They were either proof of his four-dimensional chess master genius or evidence that powerful, sinister forces were undermining him.

Because Trump’s narcissism was so profound, he responded to criticism with the political equivalent of a nuclear counterstrike. And because Trump’s insecurity was infectious, his fan base — which had outsize power in primaries — would follow suit. This ensured that most Republican politicians shouted their praise of Trump and muzzled their criticism.

Institutionalized Trump narcissism probably cost him the election because the superhuman image he insisted his loyalists embrace never reflected the reality on the ground. Many Republicans were in fact not that into him. They liked the judges, the tax cuts, even some of the “own the libs” bombast. But they were turned off by the self-indulgence, the conspiracy theorizing and the constant need for praise and attention.

The result was a massive turnout of anti-Trump voting. The bulk of it manifested as historic turnout among Democrats enraged by four years of being trolled by the president. But a chunk of it took the form of Republicans or Republican-leaning voters who split their tickets or declined to vote for the top of the ticket.

To the extent that there is any good faith to the false claims the Democrats stole the election, it can be explained by the fact that many Republicans, including Trump himself, believed the pro-Trump propaganda they’ve been fed for four years. If you actually think the president can’t lose, that Americans are with him and that the shadowy forces he was battling are real, why wouldn’t you scoff at the idea that Joe Biden won?

But Biden did win. And that fact is shattering the Temple of the Binary Choice on the right.

For four years, Donald Trump was president, which also meant he was the de facto head of the Republican Party. This allowed the acolytes of Trumpism — however you want to define that sloppy term — to marry Trumpism, nationalism, patriotism, populism, tribalism, MAGA, etc., to old-fashioned party loyalty.

That marriage is now. And the breakup is ugly. For many, Trumpism wasn’t about the party. For a few, it wasn’t even about the country. It was about him. Trump has lost his grip on the office, but he’s doing everything he can to hold on to the cult by claiming he was robbed. It remains to be seen how many people he’ll take with him. But we can be sure the answer will be “too many.”

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast.