The urgency of Republicans leaving Donald Trump behind

Donald and Melania Trump after he announced that he was seeking another term in office and officially launched his 2024 presidential campaign. Picture: Getty Images/AFP.

I’ve never met Rep. David Joyce, a moderate Republican from Ohio, but he seems to be an honest and honourable man. In a recent interview, he talked frankly about the midterm elections. “We lost,” he said. “And we lost because of some of the arguments that were being made and some of the candidates that we had.”

Mr. Joyce heads the Republican Governance Group, which consists of nearly 50 House Republicans who believe that Congress should be a functioning institution. He views this group as a counterweight to some of the more extreme elements of the Republican caucus, such as Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert. Moderate Democrats see him as someone with whom they can do business.

Still, Mr. Joyce cannot bring himself to break with Donald Trump, despite the former president’s recent dinner with two notorious anti-Semites and his remarkable demand to suspend the Constitution. “I will support whoever the Republican nominee is,” Mr. Joyce told George Stephanopoulos.

Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker was a truly Trumpian candidate. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

In ordinary circumstances, this statement would be unremarkable. But current circumstances are anything but normal. To make sure that readers understand the stakes, here is a post from Mr. Trump on Truth Social from over the weekend:

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!” He also wrote: “UNPRECEDENTED FRAUD REQUIRES UNPRECEDENTED CURE!”

Here is Mr. Joyce’s response: “Well, he says a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to happen.”

Perhaps so, though few imagined that Jan. 6 would happen. Could someone of Mr. Trump’s views and temperament be fit to return to the Oval Office? It speaks volumes when decent men such as Mr. Joyce can’t bring themselves to say no.

They can do so without crossing the aisle. Larry Hogan, Maryland’s Republican governor, refused to vote for Mr. Trump in 2020 and wrote in Ronald Reagan instead. Last week, Georgia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan emerged from a polling booth to announce that he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Herschel Walker, his party’s senatorial candidate, and left his ballot blank. In a subsequent interview, he described Mr. Walker as “one of the worst candidates in our party’s history.” Mr. Duncan added that some of his children could “articulate the conservative platform better than some of the candidates that Donald Trump and his group supported all across the country.”

Herschel Walker delivers his concession speech. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

Mr. Trump’s policies aren’t the issue. It was perfectly legitimate for him to question Republican orthodoxy on globalisation, trade, immigration, entitlements and much else and to appeal more directly to the interests and sentiments of working-class voters than his predecessors. Nor is the issue Mr. Trump’s record, which includes some genuine accomplishments, foreign and domestic.

Before assuming the office of president, every president-elect is required to take an oath swearing to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Considering Mr. Trump’s words and deeds over the past two years, would it be reasonable to believe him if he uttered this oath on Jan. 20, 2025? This is the real issue, and it is distressing that so many honourable Republicans have thus far failed to face it.

Edmund Burke once remarked that “when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one.” I can’t think of a better description of the 2016 Republican primary contest. It could happen again.

Honourable conservatives have spent years hoping that Mr. Trump would go away without a fight. The strategy hasn’t worked so far, and there is no guarantee it will. If all the Republican officials now considering their prospects enter the race, the former president could win the nomination with less than 40% of the primary vote. And if the fight against inflation plunges the economy into a recession, states that flipped for Joe Biden in 2020 could be back in play, meaning that Mr. Trump could win the general election without even a plurality of the popular vote, as he did in 2016 and nearly did again in 2020.

At some point, the Republican Party’s David Joyces (there are tens of millions of them) must make it clear that they won’t take another step with the former president and won’t support him if he is — for the third consecutive time — their party’s nominee.

The Wall St Journal