Monday morning, House speaker Paul Ryan did something that was unthinkable in the context of an ordinary presidential campaign, but inevitable in this one: He told GOP members of the House that he was no longer going to defend Trump in the wake of the leaked tape of Donald Trump lewdly discussing what he’d like to do sexually to a married TV host. Further, Ryan told House members it was up to them individually to decide whether they should back Trump. Ryan later clarified that, for some inexplicable reason, he was still endorsing Trump.
One of the more noteworthy Senate defections was Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer withdrawing her support from Trump. Over the summer, Fischer was reportedly behind a move at Nebraska’s state GOP convention to censure Nebraska’s other Republican senator, Ben Sasse, for refusing to endorse Trump. The move to censure Sasse was formally led by Fischer’s nephew, Sam Fischer, who was also a consultant to the candidacy of businessman Sid Dinsdale, who Sasse beat in the three-way GOP primary for Nebraska’s Senate seat in 2014. For a time earlier this year, Sasse was the only Republican in Congress publicly opposed to Trump’s candidacy.
Trump has responded to all of this as you might have expected. “On Twitter, Mr. Trump attacked the Republicans fleeing his campaign as ‘self-righteous hypocrites’ and predicted their defeat at the ballot box,” reports the New York Times. As for their defeat at the ballot box, Trump may be right about that, only it will be Trump’s own fault. According to NBC’s latest poll—conducted after the leaked tape, but before the debate—Trump is now trailing Clinton by 11 points. The possibility of the GOP losing a historically large House majority is very much a reality now. As one Republican member of the House told BuzzFeed, “We’re upset Trump put us in this position … We wish we were all on the same team united against Hillary.” But it is difficult to muster sympathy for Republicans in this predicament. It was known at the time they endorsed Trump that he was lewd, adulterous, and specifically bragged about bedding married women. To quote one of Trump’s favorite stump speeches, “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”
As for being on the same team against Hillary, well, Clinton’s team at least saw Trump’s problems clearly enough. It’s a Wikileaks email, socaveat lector, but doesn’t this assessment sound bang on?:
In order to win the election, Hillary Clinton needed something as crazy as Republicans nominating a serially mendacious amoral TV host with an authoritarian streak. And spineless GOP leaders stood by and let a plurality of primary voters in a divided field exploit the process and nominate Trump.
However, while I think it’s hard to ignore the hypocrisies and ironies of the last few days as members of the GOP scramble to salvage their political fortunes, they are best understood as a cautionary tale. If you’re at all worried about the future of the GOP, schadenfreude has its limits. GOP leaders cascading away from Trump should be encouraged more than they are berated, as it’s better late than never. As Ross Douthat put it, “Memo to Congressional Republicans: The door to hell is locked from the inside.”
As we look past November—and short of a Wikileaks miracle I don’t think it’s too soon to do that—it’s far more useful to assess which GOP and conservative leaders were always against Trump and stood on principle. Two names spring to mind. The aforementioned Sasse, a freshman senator, came out warning about Trump and continued to do so, even when it was hurting his political support in his home state. And he framed his opposition to Trump in explicitly moral terms. Back in January, Sasse asked Trump this astonishingly prescient question: “You brag about many affairs with married women. Have you repented? To harmed children and spouses? Do you think it matters?” Senator Mike Lee also came out against Trump, and while Utah voters have particularly hardened against Trump from the get go, Lee still went the extra mile to oppose Trump. As a sitting U.S. senator, he led a delegate revolt against Trump from the floor of the Republican convention. That revolt was shut down in a suspiciously corrupt manner, a decision that surely came from highest levels of the GOP.
Outside Republican office-holders, some other names deserve notice. At a time when religious liberty and abortion battles dictate that the Church retain moral credibility at all costs, a parade of evangelical leaders queued up to throw their lot in with Trump, a decision that ultimately says more about them than Trump. In that environment, leaders such as Dr. Russell Moore, who remained true to his values despite taking a lot of heat from others in the Southern Baptist Convention, should not be forgotten. And after a certain right-wing publication besmirched its dead founder’s good name and actually ended up an official part of Trump’s campaign, the editors of National Review should be lauded for their “Against Trump” issue. (Not to mention the editor of this magazine.)
I’m omitting many other names that also deserve credit for seeing what is in front of one’s nose. But I think this is a useful principle going forward, if you think organized opposition is necessary to combat an aggressively unconstitutional progressivism: It’s far more important to recognize which GOP leaders who stood on principle and were right about Trump, and reward them accordingly, than it is to punish or gloat about the ones who were wrong.
