Trump is completely devouring the Republican establishment
Donald J. Trump is destroying the last flashes of independence within Republican institutions with astonishing speed, demonstrating that his power continues to expand over the new party establishment he has created.
At the Republican National Committee, he plans to replace longtime supporters with allies even closer to him, including his daughter-in-law Lara Trump.
In the House of Representatives, Republicans are more accommodating than ever. Most vividly, Chairman Mike Johnson – ostensibly the party's highest ranking official – returned to approval in a crucial Senate race because Mr. Trump disagreed. On Thursday, Mr Johnson's candidate ended his campaign less than a week after opening it.
In the Senate, which is less entrusted to Trump, his influence on a failed border bill made one of the party's most effective lawmakers, Mitch McConnell, look weak.
The expressions of obedience that have emerged in recent weeks remove any lingering doubt that the Republican Party is aligned to advance one man's interests, signaling that a string of victories by Mr. Trump and his allies in November could also mean replacing checks and balances in Washington. with his wishes and whims.
For many Republicans, these are not risks, but the rewards of a second Trump administration. Only a rapidly shrinking minority within the party remains concerned about Trump's intentions.
“This is a defining moment for our party and our country,” said former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who challenged Trump in a drawn-out Republican primary with a promise to restore the party to its traditional principles. “As long as leaders continue to weaken under Trump's pressure, we will move toward a Trump Party and not the Republican Party.”
Mr Trump is consolidating control even as he faces 91 felony charges, with a New York judge on Thursday setting a trial date for March 25 in the case involving hush money payments to a porn star. A final ruling is expected Friday in a separate civil fraud case in New York, in which the attorney general is seeking to fine Mr. Trump nearly $370 million and effectively cut him off from his family business.
At the same time, Mr. Trump, who has long accused Republican leaders of manipulating the system for their own gain, has begun to mirror their methods. The swamp that he once declared needed to be drained, he now sees as wetlands that need to be protected.
Mr. Trump's team argues that he is giving voice to popular opinions that had no champion in the party, and that the changes at the Republican National Committee are designed with a single goal in mind: electing him to a second term in White House.
“Our mission is simple: maximize the resources of the Republican Party to get President Trump elected,” said Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign who will take over as chief operating officer of the RNC.
Presidents tend to become the political establishment, often appointing trusted lieutenants to key positions in their party's apparatus. But Trump has gone beyond traditional norms, both in the level of loyalty he requires and in the totality of his project to remake the conservative movement in his own image.
When Trump arrived in Washington, the reception was as hostile as the takeover he led, pushing for sharp reversals on long-standing Republican principles.
He praised strongmen like Vladimir V. Putin and publicly undermined foreign allies. He doubted fair and free elections. He embraced tough immigration measures, dismissed concerns about the national debt and supported protectionist trade policies.
Eight years later, the only question is whether Trump's grip can tighten further.
During his campaign, he has ridiculed traditional conservative powerhouses like the Koch political machine and the Club for Growth, crushing their efforts to oppose him.
The Club for Growth, a well-funded anti-tax group, effectively folded his tent after an allied group spent millions on Mr Trump, only to conclude that nothing worked. On Saturday, the group's president, David McIntosh, sat in the front row of a Trump rally in Conway, S.C., a detail the former president repeatedly dwelt on for his audience.
“David, stand up, please,” Mr. Trump said said while Mr. McIntosh sprang quickly to his feet. “He's 100 percent with us now – he's 100 percent with us. Thank you. Thank you. Nice to have you here.”
Koch's political network, Americans for Prosperity Action — long one of the country's most influential conservative groups — has poured millions into helping Trump's last remaining primary rival, Nikki Haley. Still, polls show she is at risk of defeat in next week's primaries in South Carolina, her home state.
At the same rally in South Carolina, Mr. Trump mocked Ms. Haley by insinuating that her husband had left to deploy in the National Guard to escape her — an insult aimed at a military family that has received little criticism within their party.
“Why is there silence in the Republican Party?” Mrs. Haley asked Monday in an interview with Politico. “Where are the Republicans in defense of our men and women in uniform who sacrifice for us and protect our country?”
Ms. Haley's bid was undermined years before she announced a presidential campaign, when the Trump team began working to rewrite the rules in state Republican parties to favor front-runners like him. Nevada's nominating contest this month was so focused on Mr. Trump that opponents claimed it was rigged.
But Trump seemed to want to go even further.
The former president has raised the possibility of canceling the primary process several times over the past two years during conversations with Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
Ms. McDaniel did not view Mr. Trump's suggestion as a serious request, even as the former president complained that he was being treated unfairly, the people said. Ms. McDaniel did not return a call seeking comment.
On one occasion, Mr. Trump angrily exclaimed that the party would have canceled the primary for George W. Bush if it had been the nation's 43rd president who had lost reelection and wanted to run again, said one of the people had been informed about the conversations.
The Trump campaign denied that the former president had made such comments. Mr. LaCivita, the former president's senior adviser, said the conversations were completely fabricated and that he used an expletive to describe the disputed exchanges.
Yet Ms. McDaniel was not a Never Trumper.
She owed her political post and subsequent re-election to Mr Trump's endorsements, and signed off on a plan for the party to help pay his legal bills. She quickly became a close political advisor, even if she occasionally showed a willingness to disagree with him.
Ms. McDaniel personally urged Mr. Trump to drop his opposition to masks during the pandemic, warning that his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Michigan, her home state, were based on lies. She warned that a third presidential campaign would make it impossible for the party to continue paying his legal bills — and shut him down after he ran anyway.
Most recently, Ms. McDaniel refused to cancel all Republican presidential debates — despite bullying from Mr. Trump, who refused to participate.
Trump's next chairman at the RNC will likely be Michael Whatley, a proponent of the former president's false election claims. Mr. Trump also endorsed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair of the party, who has had various roles in his political operation.
Trump is not the first president to seek a lieutenant within the family: Ronald Reagan had his daughter Maureen installed in the same second party post.
But previous efforts to overhaul the parties focused on winning elections, not just the presidency, says Michael Steele, an anti-Trump conservative who chaired the Republican National Committee during the rise of the Tea Party movement.
“Many of us have made the argument that the Republican Party has grown old and stale and frayed around the edges,” Steele said. “But we addressed that by encouraging a new generation of leadership, and it has never been so selfishly focused on one person.”