The Republican Party Cannot Be Saved
A political party that continues to support a person as depraved as Donald Trump cannot be fixed.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
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Here We Go Again
As most of you have likely heard, Donald Trump was indicted for the fourth time on Monday night. This latest indictment comes from Georgia and is, by far, the most dangerous for Trump. Unlike Trump’s last two indictments, if he is convicted in Georgia, he has no escape valve. He can’t pardon himself for a state crime, and getting a pardon in Georgia is incredibly difficult — and requires one first serve their jail sentence.
What also separates the Georgia indictment from Trump’s federal charges and his pending trial in New York City is how comprehensive it is. There are 18 co-conspirators, 30 unindicted co-conspirators, 41 counts, and more than 160 overt acts in the indictment. Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis has not simply charged Trump and his co-defendants with trying to interfere in Gerogia’s presidential election; she charged him with orchestrating a nationwide conspiracy that unfolded across numerous states. This effort, says the indictment, “constituted a criminal organization,” a stunning turn of phrase in that it describes the actions of the man who is the leading contender to become the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
From a historical perspective, Willis’s 80-page indictment is an essential document that spells out, in excruciating detail, how Trump and his team tried to perpetrate an electoral coup. It not only details Trump’s infamous phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he asked him to “find” enough votes so that he could be declared the winner of Georgia’s 16 electoral votes. But it also addresses the intimidation of Ruby Freeman, a poll worker in Georgia; lies told by Trump and others (including deliciously on Twitter); the attempt to assemble a fake slate of electors; and the breaching of voting machines. And it shows that these overt acts also occurred in Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
It’s easy to become inured to Trump’s unending lies about the 2020 election and forget the magnitude of his crimes, making the Georgia indictment such a sobering read. Trump’s electoral coup failed, but it wasn’t from lack of effort.
Yet, from a political perspective, Trump’s fourth indictment since March changes little.
If anything, Georgia’s contribution to Trump’s legal woes will likely strengthen his hold over the Republican Party and the likelihood that he ends up as the party’s nominee next year.
The Republican Party Delenda Est
Unsurprisingly, Republican elected officials responded to the Georgia indictment in the same craven and cynical manner that it responded to Trump’s previous three indictments. By refusing to engage with the substance of what Trump has done — and taking the stance that any criminal charge of him is a political witchhunt — the GOP is doubling down on the position that the former president is above the law and should never be held accountable for his actions. And lest we forget, many of these same Republicans argued against his second impeachment on similar grounds. For the GOP, Trump exists in some accountability nether world where he is never forced to take responsibility for his actions, no matter how odious and anti-democratic.
The cowardice of GOP officials also ensures that Trump will be the party’s standard bearer next year. Beating Trump was always going to be an uphill fight but refusing to make an issue out of four criminal indictments and, in fact, defend him has made beating Trump virtually impossible. Trump’s argument to his supporters is that this is all a political witchhunt, and his nominal political rivals are endorsing that message.
At this point, it largely goes without saying, but the modern Republican Party is a dumpster fire. Even if Republicans believe that former presidents of either party should not face criminal indictment (they don’t, but play along); Trump’s actions are clearly indefensible. No healthy and normal political party can embrace a political figure who actively tried to disenfranchise voters, lied about and intimidated election workers, and refused to acknowledge his political defeat. They certainly can’t embrace a person who, more than 2.5 years later, continues to lie about an election he lost. These actions amount to a political Rubicon. There’s no coming back from this. The GOP is broken and irredeemable. It cannot be fixed. It must be destroyed (at the ballot box, of course).
One More Thing …
This might be my favorite nugget from the latest Trump indictment. One of the counts against him was for asking Raffensperger to decertify the Georgia election … in September 2021, nearly eight months after he’d left office.
What’s Going On
Twitter aggressively fought a subpoena from Jack Smith to turn over Trump’s Twitter information, including drafts and direct messages. Twitter’s obstinance was so intense that it led a federal judge to ask if the company was seeking to “cozy up” to Trump.
You’re not going to believe this … but Trump stiffed several of the lawyers who were indicted along with him in Georgia. I know, it’s shocking.
Musical Interlude
Bottom line is that Republicans and the ultra-rich who support them see the coming election (and the preludes with Trump's court cases) as something like their sole remaining chance to take over the U.S.A. and remake it in their favored image. Since they don't want a one person - one vote republic, they don't care if Trump were to eat babies for lunch. He's their ticket to political control whether he's elected or the nation goes haywire because he's not, or because he's barred from being a candidate.