Trump’s impunity and the cult of power

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

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

The potential crime adds to a long list of crimes ranging from tax evasion and sexual harassment to bribing election officials and attempting to incite a violent uprising against the Capitol.

Praja Rajyam Party’s descent into the underworld is also a new level.

Crimes that go unpunished

What will be the reaction of “Party of Law and Order” supporters to the latest allegations that add to the huge legal record against Donald Trump?

According to polls, Republican support for Trump has reached ten percentage points. One by one, Republicans critical of Trump lose primaries, his liars are elected, and others remain silent, fearful.

Lynn Cheney, an extremist ideologue and once a rising star in a party who dared to expose the leader’s lies and misdeeds, was crushed in the Wyoming primaries.

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

Why this impunity?

If Donald Trump is caught shooting a fellow on Fifth Avenue, one can imagine that his supporters will come up with a thousand excuses to oust Trump and claim the poor fellow’s skin if he gets out alive.

Throughout his life, Donald Trump has avoided the consequences of his countless misdeeds. This impunity is in part tied to the power of the white rich and famous, but the explanation for its apparent political impenetrability is even worse.

Like all authoritarian populists who believe that any accusation or criticism of the self-proclaimed representative of the “real” people is an attack on all who identify with it, Donald Trump knows how to manipulate the alienated feelings of his partisan base. with him

With an unwavering grip he exercises these tens of millions of believers — some millions armed to the teeth, many of whom are ready to pull the trigger —

Trump can threaten to drop them on anyone who challenges his authority, and it works.

Tyrant worship

Responding to Cheney’s discomfort, former Republicans of the Lincoln Project concluded Tuesday: “Tonight marks the end of the Republican Party. The rest bear the name and characteristics of the mainstream GOP, but the result has become a nationalist and authoritarian cult devoted entirely to Donald Trump. »

It is already clear, it is now inevitable. Regardless of the former president’s legal woes, all political actions by Republicans between now and November 2024 will contribute to consolidating the unhealthy grip he has on his party, which has become an instrument of his tyrannical narcissism.

This view is fortunately in the minority in the United States, but if the media persists in treating the Republican Party as the “normal” party, it will prevail if moderate voters persist in identifying all of their opponents as dangerous extremists. If Trump’s attack on electoral institutions succeeds, Democrats will fail to manage their divisions.