Donald Trump's indictments say a lot about him, but the fact that the Republican party has supported the former president throughout all of his alleged misconduct also tells us a lot about the party, Vanity Fair writer Molly Jong-Fast said on Tuesday.
Trump's domination over the Republican field, even while in other countries citizens and media wonder how he could be running for president at all, shows that the party has chosen Trump over Democracy, the report states. Jong-Fast notes that even Trump's competitors for the 2024 Republican nomination are choosing to support him and attack the DOJ.
"Instead of running against Trump, you have GOP candidates running with Trump against democracy and the rule of law. Though 'defending our guy' may appeal now to GOP primary voters, the question is whether that reasoning will sway voters who don’t see Trump as a religious figure," she wrote. "Conventional wisdom would dictate that voters — especially independents who could tip the 2024 election — need to be offered something besides 'defend Trump' and 'woke bad.'"
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Jong-Fast says Trump's third indictment, for trying to overturn the 2020 election, is his "most damning" yet, and that it gave the GOP a good moment to sever ties with Trump. They chose to take a different route, she reported.
"As with the previous two indictments, or in the aftermath of January 6, or stretching back to the Access Hollywood tape, there was a moment after the latest charges in which Republicans had a chance to untether themselves from the albatross that is Trump — and once again, they refused," the article states.
"Republican voters and donors could band together and elevate another candidate, even though most haven’t offered anything but weak Trump-adjacent futures for the GOP. Instead, donors and voters seem paralyzed by the inevitability of Trump. Perhaps they don’t acknowledge the damage Trump is doing to democracy — or they simply don’t care. But the fact that the 2024 field, with rare exceptions, isn’t even trying to offer a post-Trump, pro-democracy future is perhaps the worst indictment of today’s GOP."
