Five Reasons Why Republicans Won't Abandon Trump Like They Ditched Nixon

[ehrnst]

Written about an anticipation of GOP reaction to the release of the Mueller report and possible obstruction charges, reasons 2-5 are relevant to predicting the reactions of Republicans to allegations raised in an impeachment investigation - especially for anyone who believes that allegations revealed in a Democrat-led impeachment could possibly turn many who still support Trump after all this time against him, as Republicans did Nixon.

2. Nixon was a lame-duck president; Trump’s definitely not. When the buzzards began circling Richard Nixon’s presidency, he was well into his second term, and faced a Democratic-controlled Congress that was not about to let him off the hook for any Watergate-related revelations. By the time definitive evidence of obstruction of justice emerged, the House was already considering articles of impeachment, and Democrats held 56 Senate seats. Trump is already running for reelection in what bids fair to become a savagely polarized 2020 campaign, and his party controls the Senate and thus can make (and almost certainly already has made) his removal from office via the impeachment process all but impossible. To the extent that Trump’s entire presidency is the product of some of the most intense partisanship in living memory, and his entire personality is based on his identity as a “winner,” the odds of him ever resigning in the face of attacks from Democrats seem very low. And Republicans know that.

3. Trump is a lot more popular among today’s Republicans than Nixon was among yesterday’s. People remember that Richard Nixon was reelected in 1972 by a huge landslide, but was forced to resign less than two years later. But it’s less clearly remembered that in between the two events his popularity steadily dropped — among Republicans as well as Democrats and independents. .....the resignation of his vice-president, Spiro Agnew, after being caught accepting bribes; growing public hostility to delays in ending the Vietnam War; and the beginning of a recession that interrupted a long period of economic growth. By the time Nixon was forced to resign, his approval rating overall was a terrible 24 percent, and just 50 percent among Republicans. Trumps has never fallen below 79% among Republicans, and is currently at 88%.

4. The Republican Party is more monochromatic ideologically than it was during Watergate. Many conservative Republicans defended Nixon long after the public had soured on him. That gave him some Republican support, but in those days of a strong moderate and even liberal wing of the GOP, it wasn’t enough to save him.

5. Trump’s whole approach to politics incentivizes partisan combat, not fact-based investigations. Whether or not Donald Trump is a symptom of partisan and ideological polarization on the right, or its cause (he’s almost certainly both), we have long passed the point at which Republicans are particularly concerned about whether his words are truthful or his behavior is lawful. If we’ve all become somewhat desensitized to presidential lying, it’s particularly true of fellow partisans whose daily bread is Fox & Friends, and who glory in how crazy his lies drive journalists and Democrats. Those who can remain calm when their president makes up a myth of “millions of illegal votes” for his opponent in 2016 because he can’t accept the fact that he lost the popular vote, and routinely threatens his enemies with extra-constitutional vengeance, are not suddenly going to dump him just because Robert Mueller concludes he probably had malign motives for firing James Comey.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/gop-abandon-trump-like-nixon.html

[SharonAnn]

1. It's a cult. It's not a political party. People don't easily leave cults.

[Thekaspervote]

3. This!! Those that didn't drink the koolaid are choosing to retire. Unfortunately I think we will see

Them come back when the dotard is gone

[ehrnst]

6. Yep - impeachment won't deprogram them or snap them out of it any more than

Mueller saying on television "If I had exonerated him, I would have said I exonerated him, and I did not say that I exonerated him," convinced them that Mueller had not exonerated Trump of obstruction of justice.

[uponit7771]

8. +1, Nixon bottom was 24% Red Don's bottom is 35% - ish because they now have

... FAUX News to float republicans 10 - 15%

[olegramps]

22. The years of hate broadcasting is the most significant factor the formation of todays Republican.

Republicans have been convinced that only they are true Americans and that any who oppose them are immoral and unpatriotic enemies. Shirts that are being worn at rallies clearly express this in bold print: I WOULD RATHER VOTE FOR A RUSSIAN THAN A DEMOCRAT. It is beyond bizarre that an American would support a person like Putin, an evil murderer, rather than an law abiding American citizen if they are a Democrat.

[iluvtennis]

23. + 1, a cult.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Interesting points. We shall see how it goes.

[apnu]

4. Point #4 is huge

Let's not forget the pole shift occurring at the time in the US. It had been happening for a while, as a post Civil War affect, but accelerated after Johnson signed the Civil Rights act of 1964.

But today that is all done. Every conservative minded person that wants to be in the game is in the Republican party. It is a monolith today. Every conservative I know that is soured on Trump are all out of the GOP. They claim to be indies and cast symbolic votes for Libertarians now. Those that are still in the GOP are fervently, blindly, following Trump. Like it or not, Trump is the only option for them. They are bitter and cynical and embrace their worst qualities and most selfish aspects.

[Wounded Bear]

5. Never trust a never-Trumper...

at best they will go 3d party, which would help Dems, but we cannot count on their support.

It is still vitally important to GOTV!

[uponit7771]

7. +1, they don't like the ... WAY ... Red Don is portraying what they agree with ..

... but they agree with the overall policy of.

Hurting immigrants instead of addressing the true issue of displacement
Supporting voter suppression being against liberal and western democracies
Loading the debt for rich peoples tax cuts and hurting the middle class

[empedocles]

9. At best, they damage traitortrump

other 'cons not swallow putin crap like evangelicals

[apnu]

11. Oh I don't trust them.

Only a fool throws away his vote. They're not committed people, they show up at the polls out of habit I think. They talk endlessly about political stuff, but do nothing ultimately. And they are, like every conservative I have ever met, profoundly selfish. They're financially stable, white, usually male, can can afford to throw away their votes to the Libertarians or whatever nonsense they want to write in, so they can feel obliged to complain when things don't suit them.

And I'll grant them that, they at least showed up on election day, maybe trashed their vote, but showed up. Which is more than I can say for 40% of the electorate that stays home nationally every election day.

[bigbrother05]

10. 6. Trump is doing what many wanted him to do, Nixon didn't

Nixon was elected as a big R Republican with cold warrior cred. He opened the way to China and wasn't doing well in VN. When blatant criminality was revealed, the party was aghast and wanted to excise the rot before they all went down.

Now, the GOP openly voted for a self promoting, self dealing charlatan to trigger the libs, so why would they abandon him?

The swayable middle are the ones that bought into the idea that he was only pandering to the base and would soon pivot to a more moderate position and reach out to professionals when in office. The drumbeat of corruption and criminality reported daily along with the Mueller Report and any revelations from House investigations will remove any doubt that Trump has any capacity to deviate from his current path.

Sharpiegate is the perfect example of how things will move forward. The path of decline and destruction will not be steered by outside factors and will continue until it is stopped.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. I'll take exception to some of these observations:

1. Although Nixon was in his second term when the buzzards started circling, he wasn't far along at all.
The Watergate break-in happened in June of 1972, five months before the election of the same year, and the incident received a fair amount of media coverage. However, they hadn't yet uncovered significant evidence connecting Nixon himself, and he won in a landslide in November (for many reasons having nothing to do with Watergate). The Watergate investigation (not the impeachment investigation) began in early 1973, and on the basis of the evidence disclosed in those hearings, the actual impeachment process started up the following summer. Nixon was out in August of 1974 after serving only a year and a half of his second term.

2. I don't agree that Trump is more popular with Republicans than Nixon was. Nixon had enough support from Republicans, independents and some Democrats to win all states but MA. He remained popular with Republicans until the Watergate evidence caused his support to slip in 1973. Trump did not win the popular vote, and his base of support, while fanatical, is relatively small and is not increasing all. If you think the country is more divided now than it was then, you're probably too young to remember the extreme division and outright violence of that period.

3. Those GOPers in Congress who stopped supporting Nixon (and it wasn't all of them) did so only because he'd lost the support of voters to a really startling degree: his approval rating had fallen to about 25%. Trump's support isn't that low - yet - but lately it's been below 40% and falling. His cult followers eventually won't be able to save him because there aren't enough of them.

4. While Nixon lied a lot, Trump has weaponized lying. However, it's catching up with him and only his Fox cultists still believe him. This is actually a small percentage of the population that's getting smaller, and Trump is doing nothing to increase the size of his base. He can't win an election with just his nutball base.

[eShirl]

13. 7. Because today's Republican Party is led by PABs.

[farmbo]

14. #1 Should be: "Fox News and RW Talk Radio"

These media platforms, which were non-existent during the Watergate Era, now control the media intake of 25-30 % of the US population, i.e. Trump's Base. Their content is pure propaganda, centrally controlled and amplified by the White House and a captive Republican party.
Nixon would have survived had he had Trump's present-day propaganda machine.

[Mariana]

15. And number two should be "Evangelical Churches"

many of which have made support for Trump a tenet of their Christian faith.

[Jarqui]

16. I do not believe that

They'll let the Dems knock themselves out going after Trump, pull the plug when the timing is right and install "Trump-lite" - someone who can carry on the monochrome ideology, etc without all the baggage.

GOP "Like the 2016 voters, we didn't realize what a bum he was so we're throwing him out and replacing him with a new leader - a Washington outsider who is going to clean up Washington DC - not just tweak it like Joe Biden"

To me, Trump is bait. They can throw him away anytime they want. If his election prospects continue to look dim, he's probably as good as gone. And they won't care that the Dems worked tirelessly pounding on him because they'll lose a bunch of that dumping Trump with a newer model who will make many forget Trump when it comes to casting their vote.

[wiggs]

17. #8, #9 Because the gop is seriously, deeply compromised by two sources. Reason 8: foreign

money. I believe the RNC accepted money from foreign sources, laundered through the NRA. Additionally, at the inauguration there were backroom deals and discussions with foreign adversaries. Individual gop leaders have apparently also taken foreign money, sometimes disguised as deals for the state...according to reports. There's a lot of rot in the gop, contamination from adversaries. Trump was not alone in corruption.

Reason 9: They are compromised by Trump. He knows secrets because he was involved with them. He knows the gop is complicit. And he, very likely, has threatened to burn down the party if the party doesn't support him.

So yes the gop will back trump...they need his protection because many of them, and them as a group, are on the verge of disappearing if the truth comes out or if Trump goes down.

[machoneman]

18. Partisan combat, a good descriptor. Fits like a glove to 'owning the libs'.

Still amazed that no matter how much Trumpian 'moves' hurt his own constituency, they are all for it if the moniker 'owing the libs' is used. Silly, stupid, self-destructive...no matter. As if hurting us is the American way these days.

Sad those these uneducated bumpkins still don't accept that:

-far more Caucasians are on SS, Medicare. Medicaid, food stamps than all the minorities put together.
-far more Caucasians get Federal, state and local aid (think: clothing, housing, tax breaks, etc.) than all the minorities put together.
-far more Caucasians have access to good medical care, schooling and more than all the minorities put together.

Point is, Trumpian policies often hurt more of his voters than any other party, creed, race, etc. but if one is too freakin' dumb to know these things, they will go along.....if they believe like him that it hurts the libs.

Sad, but true.

[yaesu]

19. One big reason, they have the Federal courts packed with tRumpsters. nt

[mcar]

20. K&R!

[lpbk2713]

21. (R)s have no moral compass.

What drives them is to win at any and all costs.

[CloudWatcher]

24. source url

Fyi, this is from http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/gop-abandon-trump-like-nixon.html

Two comments from me ...

1) The GOP has already been purged of their "moderates" by the tea-party primaries. What's left are the crazies.

But even so,

2) They still must pay attention to their sponsors. As Wall Street wakes up to just how dangerous Trump is to their bottom line, it'll become much more acceptable to oppose him.

Propaganda from Fox News et al can slow thing down. But it's tough to lie your way through the economy crashing.

[ehrnst]

28. Thank you - left that out. I've added it to the OP. (nt)

[BumRushDaShow]

25. They threw every one of the Raygun "principles" under the bus

and all they have left is their true core - the racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and hypocritical view of life.

[Cryptoad]

26. But main number one reason is...

all the Oligarch money he is funneling their way!

[Amaryllis]

27. Biggest REason: Moscow Mitch and others are in the corruption and Russian rubles up to their

eyeballs and are protecting their ass(ets).