No matter what. No value or principle or obligation, no oath of office, no responsibility to the American people, no measure of loyalty to the country, nothing when push comes to shove will override the imperative for the Republican Party to back Donald Trump (as we have seen this week, even before confirmation of a thoroughly unfit Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and the corrupt Friday night purge of inspectors general). Whether crooked or reckless or cruel, whether contrary to law or to the Constitution, whether anti-democratic or damaging to the national interest: Republican leaders in Congress (and across the country) will back Trump. Dissenting voices, if any, will be too few and too faint to make a difference.
Earlier this week, after Trump’s pardons and commutations of scores of January 6 rioters guilty of violently attacking the police, Aaron Blake reviewed Congressional Republicans’ responses:
…that so few seem eager to even express disapproval of pardoning so many people who assaulted police — and some are even aligning themselves with a decision that a poll recently showed three-quarters of Americans oppose — is a watershed moment in our politics.
And it has been a long time coming. One of the overriding lessons of the Trump era for GOP lawmakers is that those who criticize him not only pay the price with their base, but they often see things they once regarded as beyond the pale become the party line — typically with the help of fading memories and plenty of retconning.
Blake and I are in agreement, though in my view fading memories and retconning understates the staggering measure of deceit and cynicism involved. We can see this rite playing out in Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to establish a new select committee to examine the events surrounding January 6, as reported by Maya C. Miller in the New York Times:
The new panel is to be led by Representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who chaired a similar panel during the last Congress. As part of that panel’s work, he released a video compilation that sought to shift blame for the Jan. 6 assault away from Mr. Trump and onto former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was pursued that day by a violent mob of Trump supporters.
Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, teased on Tuesday that she would be the first member of Congress to offer guided tours of the Capitol to the recently pardoned and released rioters.
Two days after the Miller’s report, Jonathan Chait observed that while a number of Republicans defended Trump’s pardons, most “turned to a familiar menu of evasive maneuvers.” Susan Collins professed to know nothing about Trump releasing criminals who had assaulted police; Chuck Grassley sneered about Biden’s “selfish” pardons of his family. Senate Majority Leader John Thune insisted, “We’re not looking backwards; we’re looking forwards” (though this is out of step with the launch of another House Republican investigation of January 6). Chait again:
The most revealing statement on the pardons came from House Speaker Mike Johnson. “The president’s made his decision,” he said. “I don’t second-guess those.” Here, Johnson was stating overtly what most of his colleagues had only revealed tacitly: that he does not believe that his job permits him to criticize, let alone oppose, Trump’s actions.
In September 2020, I wrote about Trump’s plan to steal the 2020 election, quoting this passage from Barton Gelman:
The worst case, however, is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him. If Trump sheds all restraint, and if his Republican allies play the parts he assigns them, he could obstruct the emergence of a legally unambiguous victory for Biden in the Electoral College and then in Congress. He could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is any outcome at all. He could seize on that uncertainty to hold on to power.
I agreed with Gelman that many Republicans would play the parts Trump assigned and I expressed surprise at how fully authoritarian the Grand Old Party had become during 2020. I noted that less than a year earlier, I would have rejected Gelman’s thesis: “…I would have regarded this contingency as a bridge too far. But here we are.”
And, as we saw in the months leading up to January 6, Gelman was right. There was a surfeit of willing players assisting with Trump’s scheme to steal the election. Still more remarkable: Trump continued to push the big lie — that he had won in 2020 and that January 6 was a peaceful protest — and Republicans continued to play along, to play the parts Trump assigned.
This pattern — no matter what the outrage — has endured, becoming an indelible feature of the MAGA GOP, not just a one-off or a handful of one-offs. In 2022 I wrote that “the recurring constant in the GOP since Trump’s rise: Republicans have been willing – perhaps not right away, but eventually – to go along for the ride. There is, after the dust settles, never a bridge too far for most GOP professionals, Republican elected officials, or the Trump base. They’re all-in when it counts.”
Every rule, perhaps, has exceptions. Perhaps, as Trump’s rampages continue, the pattern will break. And then we’ll see the rule for GOP obeisance, There is never a bridge too far, fail.
But so far, nothing doing. In 2025, Trump’s off-the-rails conduct, no matter how extreme, no matter how damaging, hasn’t diminished his dominance over the Republican Party. Republicans continue to play the parts Trump assigns.