For most of my life, I was a bigger supporter of the U.S. Republicans than of my own party, the British Conservatives. The two parties were similar in many ways, but Tories had a weakness for hierarchy, deference, and tradition, while Republicans struck me as radicals and individualists, heirs to Tom Paine rather than Edmund Burke.
Former President Donald Trump was painfully at odds with the philosophy of the GOP — a party to which he had come late and opportunistically. Where his predecessors had sought to limit government, he liked to mobilize the full resources of the state against people who crossed him.
There was something unmanly about the way his erstwhile conservative critics rushed to abase themselves before him, abandoning their previous convictions and raging at the handful of Reaganite commentators who stuck to theirs. I continue to believe that, had the Republicans seized any of their numerous opportunities to ditch the Donald and replace him with former Vice President Mike Pence, they would now hold both Congress and the White House.
But I never gave up on the party itself. When I spoke privately to its leading figures, including several who in public went along with Trump’s most boorish, cowardly, and self-centered pronouncements, I was reassured that they were still republican in the basic sense of recognizing that the republic is bigger than the people running it.
Now, I’m starting to wonder. Their response to the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago makes me doubt whether the party is still in any sense constitutionalist. Rallying to the defense of their caudillo, congressmen, Fox News anchors and talk show hosts are calling for the FBI to be defunded or disbanded. Conservative agitators strive to outdo one another in their outrage — without, as far as I can tell, expressing any curiosity about whether Trump has in fact broken the law.
By the time you read these words, you will probably know more about the FBI raid than I do. Maybe it has to do with the tawdry events of Jan. 6. Maybe the warrant was issued for a small thing in the hope of turning up a bigger one. Maybe the bureau has screwed up completely — heaven knows it wouldn’t be the first time.
One thing, though, should be beyond dispute. The same rules should apply to Trump as to any other American. Former presidents do not have a special status in law. Yet Republicans at every level seem affronted at the idea of searching the house of a private citizen.
Yes, federal agencies can be biased. The IRS ended up having to apologize to the conservative organizations it has subjected to “heightened scrutiny and inordinate delays” during the Obama years. But there is no evidence that the FBI has gone rogue.
The issuing of a warrant is no small thing. Let me quote the Fourth Amendment (sorry to be forever citing your Constitution, but it’s a bloody good document that I wish Americans would cite more often).
“No Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
If, though, the FBI has not screwed up, if Trump has in fact broken the law, then surely he should be treated like any other criminal. That’s what living in a free republic means.
Listen, though, to how quickly Republicans have dropped their pro-law and order views.
Here is Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) during the Black Lives Matter and antifa riots of 2020: “I unequivocally #BackTheBlue and will oppose any bill, resolution, or movement that calls to ‘defund the police.’”
Here he is today: “I will support a complete dismantling and elimination of the democrat brown shirts known as the FBI.”
Here is Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) then: “It’s a sad and scary day in America when we have citizens calling to defund and dismantle the police.”
And here he is now: “The FBI has proven time and again that it is corrupt to the core. At what point do we abolish the Bureau and start over?”
Here — you knew it was coming — is the egregious Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) last year: “Crime is exploding in Democrat-run cities. … This is 100% the result of their left-wing policies of defunding the police, backing BLM / ANTIFA, destroying families, and coddling of criminals! “
And here she is now: “DEFUND THE FBI!”
There was a time when journalists would ask whether Trump’s latest outrage would finally push Republicans away from him — mocking the late Sen. John McCain’s military record, lying about his tax return, insulting the family of a fallen U.S. serviceman, refusing to accept an election result. This time, no one is asking. Donald Trump has not changed. But he has changed his party — malignly and, it seems, permanently.
