In 2016, Donald Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and that his supporters would still support him. In 2022, it still stands.

According to Mar-a-Lago’s search warrant, the former president violated the Sensitive Information Protection Act (Espionage Act).

This potential crime adds to a long list, ranging from tax evasion and sexual assault to attempts to bribe election officials and incitement to violent rebellion against the Capitol.

It’s also a new level in the Republican Party’s abyss.

crimes without punishment

What is the reaction of Law and Order supporters to the latest accusations adding to Donald Trump’s heavy legal record?

According to opinion polls, Republican support for Trump has risen by about ten percentage points. One by one, the Republicans who criticize Trump are defeated in the primaries, those who promote his lies and the others are elected silent and terrified.

Lynn Cheney, the far-right theorist and a rising star in the party who dared expose the leader’s lies and misdeeds, was crushed in the Wyoming primary.

However, the alleged errors against Trump are serious and the evidence is overwhelming.

Why this impunity?

One can imagine that if Donald Trump was caught red-handed shooting a colleague on Fifth Avenue, his supporters would devise a thousand pretexts to exonerate Trump and demand that the poor man be flogging if he came out alive.

Throughout his life, Donald Trump has survived the countless consequences of his misconduct. This impunity is partly related to the privileges of the rich and white celebrities, but the explanation for their lack of political harm is even more sinister.

Like all authoritarian populist leaders, Donald Trump knows how to manipulate feelings of alienation from his party base, who have come to believe that any accusation or criticism of the “real” people’s representative is an attack on whoever identifies him. with him.

Armed with the firm fist he wields over tens of millions of believers—including a few million armed to the teeth, many of whom are ready to pull the trigger—

Trump could threaten to unleash it on anyone who dares to challenge his authority…and it works.

totalitarian cult

Responding to Cheney’s uneasiness, former Republicans on the Lincoln Draft concluded Tuesday: “Tonight marks the end of the Republican Party. What remains bears the name and marks of the mainstream Republican Party, but in reality it has become a nationalist and authoritarian cult entirely devoted to Donald Trump.”

It was already obvious, and now it’s inevitable. Regardless of the former president’s legal misfortunes, all Republican political actions between now and November 2024 will contribute to the consolidation of the unhealthy control he exercises over his own party, which has become the instrument of his authoritarian narcissism.

This view is fortunately in the minority in the United States, but it nonetheless could prevail if right-wing voters continue to view all their opponents as dangerous extremists, if the media continues to treat the Republican Party as a “normal” party, and if Democrats fail to manage their divisions And if the Trumpists’ attack on the electoral institutions succeeds.