The Trumps ran the Republican Party and the executive branch like an organized crime family. This was unsurprising, given President Trump’s previous association with La Cosa Nostra, which held sway over the construction, gambling, and hospitality industries around New York through the 1980s. He considered his lawyer Roy Cohn’s concurrent representations of Tony Salerno, Carmine Galante, and John Gotti of the Genovese, Bonanno, and Gambino families a feature, not a bug.
Having risen in that milieu and embraced its values, such as they are, the Trumps should realize that they cannot keep running the syndicate after enduring an embarrassing public setback. Donald Trump Jr.’s tweet last week that “the total lack of action from virtually all of the ‘2024 GOP hopefuls’ is pretty amazing” was a threat, but properly understood, it’s a sign of weakness, not strength. Ambitious rivals should act ruthlessly, now, to seize control of the GOP.
There is no modern precedent for a president defeated at the polls to have a say in who the next nominee of the party is, much less run again themselves. President George H.W. Bush did not play kingmaker in the 1996 Republican primary, nor did President Jimmy Carter in the 1984 Democratic contest, and nor did President Gerald Ford in the 1980 GOP race. Herbert Hoover, defeated in 1932, unwisely took an active role in the 1936 campaign — Republican Alf Landon lost the Electoral College 523-8 and the popular vote 61% to 37% before the GOP implored Hoover to please just go away.
Republican presidential nominees who lose general elections usually do not get second chances, either. Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Barry Goldwater served constructively in the U.S. Senate but did not mount national campaigns again. The exception that proves the wisdom of this general rule is Richard Nixon, who lost narrowly in 1960, was curdled by his defeat, narrowly won a three-way race in 1968, and sowed the seeds of his own destruction by obstructing the FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in by his 1972 campaign staff, a race in which he was cruising to reelection.
Trump deserved defeat on the substance of his poor policy record and demonstrated unfitness for high office. But as anyone who watched the Republican National Convention or the debates can attest, there was nothing in his or his campaign’s performances that suggests irreplaceable political skills, either. As Bill Parcells likes to say, “You are what your record says you are.” President George W. Bush won reelection with 51% of the popular vote, Reagan with 59%, Nixon with 61%, and Eisenhower with 57%. Trump looks set to come in with 48% (or less).
Added to this rejection by the voters are the Trump world’s unhinged responses to adversity. Trump Jr. called for “total war.” Trump’s all-caps tweets were not surprising, but that doesn’t make them any less presidential. Trump’s legal team to contest the election in the courts is led by David Bossie and includes Corey Lewandowski; whatever else they may be, unhelpfully to the task at hand, they are not lawyers.
Similarly, firing Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is likely both score-settling (regarding the military’s unwillingness to repeat its June 1 mistake of unlawfully using force against peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square) and also an attempt to see if a more pliant official may be found to aid Trump in his dwindling campaign to hang on to power. The full record of this administration’s civil-military relations is something that may not be flattering to Trump if explored under oath by the congressional armed services committees with flag officers and former civilian appointees.
If courage is grace under pressure, these spectacles are quite the opposite, and they are likely to get worse through Jan. 20.
Trump is already under multiple investigations and could see renewed congressional investigations into official misconduct from the past four years, in addition to defamation suits related to Trump’s alleged sexual assaults and rapes. These investigations and lawsuits have been blocked by spurious invocations of absolute executive privileges and presidential immunities, which have now almost run their exhaustive but predictably unsuccessful courses in the appellate courts. If reporting on Trump’s finances is accurate, bankruptcy proceedings may be on the horizon, too.
There is no good reason for the Republican Party to be held hostage to this House of Borgiaesque family’s fortunes any longer. If anything, what the Trumps suggest regarding 2024 is a role similar to that of the Clintons within the Democratic Party: Despite criminal misconduct, the disgrace of impeachment, and a loss at the polls, they feel entitled to outsize voices within that party, right down through their children. Basta.
Potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates should seek separation from, not identification with, the past four years. There are successful GOP governors unsullied by party-line congressional votes to refuse to indict or convict Trump. There are retired general and flag officers, such as my commander on my second Afghanistan tour, Adm. William McRaven, who are publicly dipping their toes into political waters.
Look to these kinds of high-character men and women as promising future party leaders, not those who, as a dog returns to its vomit, repeat the folly of excusing every malignant utterance of Trump.
To continue the mafia analogy, there were old school bosses who could “take a pinch like a man” and quietly run the family from inside the joint. Trump is not that kind of Godfather. And the party of Abraham Lincoln does not need to be run like the mob.
Kevin Carroll served as senior counselor to the secretary of homeland security (2017-18) and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee (2011-13), as well as a CIA and Army officer. He is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
