Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart – Again

by Robert Kagan

From the uneasy and sometimes contentious partnership during Trump’s four years in office, the party has become an active enabler of Trump’s efforts to complete the coup d’état he launched after the 2020 election. And even though there are still “establishment” Republicans in the party, like McConnell and Romney, who can see perfectly clearly where the party is taking the country—as Romney says, “A very large portion of my party doesn’t believe in the Constitution”—they have been unwilling to risk their political careers by resisting.[11] With the party firmly under his thumb, Trump is now waging his rebellion against the Constitution on separate fronts. One is normal, legitimate political competition, whereby Trump runs for office and Republicans criticize Biden’s policies, feed and fight the culture wars, and in general behave like a typical hostile opposition. The other front is outside the bounds of constitutional and democratic competition and in the realm of illegal or extralegal efforts to undermine the electoral process. The two are intimately related, because the Republican Party has used its institutional power in the political sphere to shield Trump and his followers from the consequences of their illegal and extralegal activities in the lead-up to January 6. Party leaders have run interference for the Trump movement in the sphere of legitimate politics, using the power of Congress to undermine faith in the justice system and American government more generally, ...