Let’s say that I’m a Republican senator who is not a big fan of Trump. However, I have all the other usual conservative bonafides: hate gays, hate abortion, wants to bomb brown people, pro-business, pro tax cuts, etc. I stand for my reelection this year. Why shouldn’t I vote against Trump’s interests in the impeachment trial? What could Trump do to me?
The filing deadline for the primary is over in all fifty states. If I have a primary challenger, is the person someone that Trump could endorse? If so, I may have a problem. If I don’t have a challenger, then Trump can’t hurt me there. So, then comes the November election. What are the voters back home going to do? Are they going to vote for the gay-loving, tree-hugging, “open borders” Democrat? Not hardly. Trump isn’t going to endorse the Democrat. So how can he hurt me there?
Let’s say I vote to convict Trump. If enough of my colleagues also vote to convict, then Trump is no longer president. Now, he’s still got fans back home. But, again, what choice do they have? They can’t run a primary challenger at this point. They’re not going to vote for the pinko commie socialist Democrat. So, I’m the only guy they’ve got. They may be mad at me, but they’ve got no one else to vote for. When I run again in six years, they will have long ago forgotten about my Trump betrayal. Trump may have a lot fewer fans by then anyway.
I can also point out that convicting Trump brought Pence into the White House. He’s a real Dominionist Christian. He hates gays and abortion and all the other stuff. He doesn’t brag about grabbing women by the pussy – hell, he won’t even meet with a woman without Mother being there. Pence is the real deal for the “family values” crowd. What’s the downside?
I don’t think any of the Senators running in 2020 are past the day when someone can’t file to run against them in a primary. Until those deadlines pass, these senators won’t make waves.
Think of it as herd immunity. So long as all the Republicans band together on this, they’re all covering each others’ backs. Anybody who stands out from the crowd and goes against everybody’s wishes is like an anti-vaxxer refusing to vaccinate their kids. Somebody who goes against Trump is going to be demonized by the party and they’ll be up a creek without a paddle, politically speaking.
Presumably even if a Republican senator isn’t primaried, he could still be up against a “more Trumpier than Thou” independent in the actual election, right? And official independents occasionally win senate seats.
I’ve asked myself the same question the OP has over and over. A republican in a place in the US that is prominently republican in government has it easy if they stay together. To win a reelection, they can just point out all that “wasted time with dems not doing their jobs” (as many repubs already state). That is probably enough to keep their voters that already back them.
As far as I can see, the only issue for Republican senators isn’t that they themselves will be jeopardized, as it is that dumping Trump makes it likelier that a Democrat will be in the White House in 2021. It dampens the Republican momentum, whichever new GOP nominee that emerges won’t have Trump’s current $400 million war chest, it will dampen Republican turnout at the polls in November.
I can see the herd immunity argument, but where are those Republican voters going to go? They can’t vote for the Democrat. They’ve got no choice but to vote for the Republican, even if he’s voted against Trump. And the senator can spin it as not a vote against Trump, but a vote FOR the saintly Pence.
Politically I see where they’re coming from – the Republican party now needs a big chunk of disgruntled voters who are excited by Trump and don’t trust anyone else. I think they think there’s a very high chance those voters will vote 3rd party or stay home if the GOP turns against Trump.
Morally reprehensible, but it makes sense politically, AFAICT. I think there really might be a large chunk of the GOP electorate that are essentially “Trump or nothing” voters at this point. At this moment, the GOP has absolutely no chance to win without these voters, even if they’re only 10-20% of the party (and I think they might be a lot more).
They can stay at home. If you’ve interacted with a good deal of Trumpers on Facebook, you’ll see that their loyalty is to Trump, not the Republican Party. They have no qualms attacking other Republicans such as Romney, Bolton, and anyone who isn’t aboard the Trump train. If Trump is deposed from office, a good chunk of them WILL stay home out of protest.
If you’re a Republican Senator, you can’t try to appeal to sensible rational voters at this point. Those people are going to vote for a Democrat. Your only hope is sticking with the crazies and hoping things will somehow work out.
This. To them, Trump is better than any Democrat. If Trump is convicted, a lot of his rabid supporters will stay home and not vote at all. That gives us a Democratic president and maybe even a Democrat in their Senate seat if theirs is up for grabs in November.
I heard someone on the radio the other shady talking about how Trumpists is really a cult, and I thought, “Wow, that explains a lot!”
All the lies and fear, unflinching support, and so on… but one key component of cults is that the threat of being expelled is such a powerful deterrent to independent thought. I’m sure we’ve all seen or read about cult members who are told they have to cut off relationships with apostates. To me, as a non-cultist, I think: oh hell yeah! What do I want with a bunch of crazies anyway? Shun me, do it now!
But when your entire community is limited to people who see things exactly the way the leader wants them to, being exiled from everything you know can be a powerful threat.
I think Republican politicians are in that same enmeshed relationship with each other that stepping out of line is as traumatic as attempting to break out of Scientology or whatever. It isn’t that you’re going to be murdered or anything, you’re just setting yourself up for a lonely life and losing everything you’ve worked to achieve.
It’s not what Trump can do to you; it’s what his committed voters can do to you. There’s enough of them in your district to make you care what happens to Trump. But voters are fickle, indeed. There’s no guarantee they’re going to help you. But the fear is that they can hurt you either by supporting a primary challenger or by not supporting you against a Democratic challenger.
But the voters are only part of the equation. Politics is a career, and that career continues long after you’re out of office. You can make a career by being part of the conservative political ecosystem and helping republican causes. But if you are seen as disloyal, then you can be exiled from that ecosystem. And right now, Trump is at the apex of that power structure. A sitting president usually is.
They’re thinking about the long game - longer than just their own time in the senate. There’s a reason that congressmen and women retire and even in retirement are careful not to overstay their welcome by being too vocal about their concerns with Trump. And they’re not just afraid of Trump - they’re afraid of McConnell, afraid of Fox News, afraid of the billionaires bankrolling their causes, afraid of think tanks and Breitbart.
I mean what do politicians normally do when they’re not in office? Spend time around people who are and who want to be.
In addition, we can’t overlook the spite factor. No matter how guilty Trump may be, or how removing him may benefit the GOP, kicking him out of office via a 2/3 Senate vote would be an enormous PR victory for the Democrats. *Those *Democrats. The Democ-RATS. Many Republican senators, presumably, just like the rank-and-file GOP vote, couldn’t stomach that. The liberal cheering and champagne-popping would nauseate their entire red party base.
Trump is petty and vindictive and holds the Republican base in an iron grip. If the party turns against him he will burn the whole thing down to the ground on his way out. He will spend every minute he has left in his miserable life making it hell for any and all Republicans.