The first Republican primary debate is today and former President Donald Trump cannot be bothered to show up, even though he is the leading candidate in the field.
Trump is demonstrating, yet again, his contempt for the basics of American democracy – his own voters in this case.
Even Republican voters inclined to support someone else in the primary will likely vote for Trump in the general election.
It is shocking that he cannot be bothered to reach out to them, to solicit their support. He simply takes it for granted.
Again, Trump has opened an avenue for an alternative, more normal GOP presidential candidate. Yet again, the rest of the field will likely squander that chance.
Does Donald Trump Even Care about Politics and Policy?
Trump is hugely curious figure in American politics, because he is distinctly apolitical.
Trump has no obvious ideology.
In the 1990s, when he first considered running for president, he famously bounced around between Democrat, Republican, and independent status. He seemed to pick the Republican party in 2015 out of opportunism.
The GOP at that time was discombobulated. Its last president – George W. Bush – left office hugely unpopular. Bush had grossly mismanaged the war on terrorism, the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the finance industry (leading to the Great Recession). After defeats in the 2008 and 2012 elections, there was no obvious successor to leadership in the party.
The Democrats, by contrast, had a popular former president in Barack Obama. And after him, were a series of Democrats lined up to run for president, including Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
The path to the GOP nomination in 2016 was far more accessible for Trump.
But Trump was always a weird Republican.
The most dedicated block of GOP voters in the country is Protestant evangelicals, yet Donald Trump lives a hedonistic lifestyle distinctly at odds with their moral politics. Trump cared little for the culture complaints which motivate the GOP base, and his attitudes toward entitlements and the social safety have always been to the left of the libertarianism of many Congressional Republicans.
Even Trump’s decision to make a Mexican border wall the centerpiece of his campaign was more by chance than design.
Donald Trump has come to personify Republican voters’ cultural grievances in a changing America. Still, it is unclear if Trump cares about these issues or just uses them because they resonate.
Trump is obviously a racist and sexist in his personal life, but he has not acted on ‘wokeism’ the way Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has. In 2020, the GOP did not even publish a policy platform, content to say that its policies were whatever Trump wanted.
What really motivates Trump, of course, is his personal grievances – the humiliation of defeat in 2020, anxiety that he will face jail time over his many indictments, the dislike he faces from the leaders of US allies, and so on. These grievances align somewhat with those of his base. But he never bothered to finish the border wall during his presidency, and a second Trump presidency will almost certainly be focused on vengeance against is enemies rather than policy.
Trump’s real ideology is narcissistic authoritarianism – a self-regarding disdain for democratic proceduralism – not conservatism or libertarianism in the American tradition.
Alternative to Donald Trump?
The question bedeviling the conservative movement continues to be how to push Trump aside for someone who is both: a) committed to democracy – who will care enough to show up for debates, not go to prison, not subvert elections when he loses, and so on; and b) cares about policy – who offers a program of conservative governance beyond cultural resentment and theatrics.
Ron DeSantis was supposed to be this alternative. DeSantis is a staunch conservative; progressives will reject his policies. But he accepts the democratic process in a way Trump does not. DeSantis will not push the country toward the constitutional crisis Trump is igniting.
But DeSantis is, rather inexplicably, flaming out. If he botches the upcoming debate, there will be room for an alternative. Tim Scott, the Georgia senator, might be a good choice. He does not have Trump’s legal and psychological burdens, and he seems to have the charisma DeSantis painfully lacks. GOP donors searching for an alternative to Trump are looking at Scott.
There is still time to nominate a less divisive figure in the GOP and return the country to a ‘normal’ bipartism where both parties accept election results and do not seek to corrupt the government. The Trump-less debate is a chance for an alternate to finally emerge.
About the Author
Dr. Robert E. Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly; RoberEdwinKelly.com) is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University and 19FortyFive Contributing Editor.
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