We’re only 13 months deep in Donald Trump’s presidency, and both Trump and the GOP may finally be settling into the arrangement.
This comes as the broader conservative movement’s internal battle over Trump has quieted but not at all faded (see: CPAC). From a 30,000-foot view, it’s still early in what’s sure to be a conflict that lasts longer than three years, so recent adjustments could signal the start of a new phase in that ongoing conversation.
Writing in the New York Times on Wednesday, Jonathan Martin examined recent moves made both by Trump and some of his previous detractors, from Mitt Romney to Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Dean Heller, R-Nev., to Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz. As each campaigns (or considers campaigning), Martin wrote, “They are essentially making peace with a president they once shunned.” And in turn, he argued, “What is striking is how easy a president often consumed with slights has made it for his former critics to bind up old wounds.”
Trump’s endorsement of Romney clearly seems to support that contention.
Perhaps as time elapses and we really have the benefit of hindsight, major outbursts like the one that erupted last fall between Trump and Corker, remarkable as it was, will amount to growing pains in the party’s longer evolution. Republicans like Romney may determine their best bet at achieving desired policy outcomes is generally to keep the peace with Trump, and the president may decide keeping that peace most effectively ensures his agenda will pass Congress.
The party may have found its path to stability. At least, on the surface.
