MAGA Wants Transgression, and This Is What Comes With It
“The North Carolina Republican Party is facing one of the most predictable crises in the history of party politics.
Its primary voters enthusiastically supported a candidate for governor named Mark Robinson — voting for him by a more than 45-point margin over his closest rival (he won by 64.8 percent to 19.2 percent) — even though he had a remarkable record of deeply inflammatory and even unhinged statements.
Last week, a comprehensive CNN report unearthed compelling evidence that Robinson had posted on a porn site called Nude Africa. I cannot possibly repeat the worst posts, but the less graphically obscene ones included statements like this: “I’m a Black Nazi,” and “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few.”
That’s not all. “I’m not in the K.K.K.,” he also said, according to the CNN report. “They don’t let Blacks join. If I was in the K.K.K. I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!” He said he’d prefer Hitler to what he sees in Washington today.
No one, however, should be surprised. Even before the primary, Robinson’s horrific character was on display. Among other things, he had called school shooting survivors who advocated gun control “media prosti-tots,” accusedMichelle Obama of being a man, and trafficked in so many antisemitic tropes that his election as lieutenant governor in 2020 was an alarm bell for Jewish leaders in the state.
In other words, Republican voters knew he was a bad man when they chose him. Now they know he is a very bad man.
Yet North Carolina Republicans are doubling down. Robinson has denied that the posts are his — but without addressing any of the evidence showing that the postings match screen names he’s used, match his email address and match key biographical details. To the G.O.P., the real problem was the report. The party issued a statement saying that “the Left can try to smear” Robinson “all they want” and “demonize him via personal attacks.”
What makes the situation all the more grievous, at least for me, is that Robinson is running as an outspoken evangelical. One of his spokesmen, Mike Lonergan, has described him as “very bold and outspoken about his Christian faith.”
The entire situation was so embarrassing for North Carolina Republicans that it prompted Ben Shapiro to post, “Perhaps the American primary voter should start nominating normies for high office. I dunno. Just a thought.” Yet Shapiro announced earlier this year that he would co-host a fund-raiser for Trump, and Robinson — and others like him — thrives in the Republican Party precisely because of Trump.
Much of the commentary about Robinson’s posts has centered on his impact on the presidential election. Will Robinson’s scandals drag down Trump in a key swing state? I’m dubious. Voters have long shown that they’re more likely to support Trump than any of his acolytes or imitators.
Down-ballot MAGA nominees trail Trump significantly in the polls. Before these revelations, FiveThirtyEight had Trump up by 0.1 percent. Robinson, by contrast, was losing by 5 to 14 points. In Arizona, FiveThirtyEight has Trump up by 0.5 percent. Kari Lake, the MAGA nominee for Senate, trails her Democratic opponent Ruben Gallego by substantially greater margins.
In 2022, Trump’s collection of cranks and conspiracy theorists proved that they can lose race after race, even when Democratic approval ratings are low.
While I’m interested in Robinson’s potential impact on the presidential race, I’m also concerned with the ongoing impact of MAGA on the heart of the Republican Party. Last month, I wrote a column endorsing Kamala Harris for the presidency, in large part because I believe that a Harris victory gives Republicans “a chance to build something decent” from the ruins of a Trump defeat.
After enduring weeks of lies about the Haitian immigrants who live in Springfield, Ohio, and an entire news cycle devoted to covering Trump’s connection with Laura Loomer, one of the most overtly racist figures in MAGA America (she once spoke at a conference of white nationalists and declared, “I consider myself to be a white advocate, and I openly campaigned for the United States Congress as a white advocate”) — I’m hardening my view. Trump loses now or the Republicans are lost for a generation. Maybe more.
The reason is plain: The yearslong elevation of figures like Mark Robinson and the many other outrageous MAGA personalities, along with the devolution of people in MAGA’s inner orbit — JD Vance, Elon Musk, Lindsey Graham and so very many others — has established beyond doubt that Trump has changed the Republican Party and Republican Christians far more than they have changed him.
In nine years, countless Republican primary voters have moved from voting for Trump in spite of his transgressions to rejecting anyone who doesn’t transgress. If you’re not transgressive, you’re suspicious. Decency is countercultural in the Republican Party. It’s seen as a rebuke of Trump.
This has changed the composition of the party. While many decent people remain — and represent the hope for future reform — Trump’s Republican Party has become a magnet for eccentrics and conspiracy theorists of all stripes. In a sharp essay (which my colleague Ross Douthat also highlighted), Matthew Yglesias calls this phenomenon the “crank realignment.”
Indeed, Trump in his diabolical shrewdness knows how to build and maintain his own base. He’s shed the Republican Party’s traditional commitment to life. He’ll sprint away from any policy or principle that he believes might cost him power. At the same time, he watches his crowd roar when he demonizes immigrants (MAGA’s true north star) and he sees “red-pilled” young men rally to his side when he punches hard and never backs down.
Leaders don’t simply enact policies; they dictate the cultures of the institutions they lead. We’ve all experienced this phenomenon in our workplaces, churches and schools. I’ve compared the cultural power of a leader to setting the course of a river. Defying or contradicting the leader’s ethos is like swimming against the current — yes, you can do that for a time, but eventually you get exhausted and either have to swim to the bank and leave, or you’re swept downstream, just like everyone else.
Trump has set the course of the Republican Party’s cultural river for more than nine years. Fewer and fewer resisters remain, and they’re growing increasingly exhausted and besieged. You can see it online in response to the Robinson news. The mere suggestion that Republican primary voters can and should do better is greeted by scorn and contempt.
Both parties have always been vulnerable to nominating or electing the occasional crank, but Donald Trump’s ascendance meant that a crank led the party, and the best way to join with him is to imitate him. That’s how you get a Mark Robinson, or a Marjorie Taylor Greene, or a Lauren Boebert, or a Matt Gaetz. The list goes on. That’s how leaders change institutions. They make them into images of themselves.
In this case, Trump has done so explicitly. Almost all the worst figures in the Republican Party have ridden Trump endorsements to the top of their local pyramids. Robinson received Trump’s endorsement and swamped his primary opposition. Trump even called him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
The lesson is simple: If you want more Mark Robinsons, vote for Donald Trump.
It’s possible that the Republican Party is simply too far gone, at least for now. A primary electorate that chooses Robinson over more reasonable candidates by 45 points — and a party that blames “the left” for revealing that he’s even worse than anyone knew — does not seem ready to change.
But unless and until the Republican Party reverses course and purges MAGA from the party every bit as thoroughly as it has purged Reaganism, American politics will remain unstable. A coalition of decency (who could ever imagine Nancy Pelosi and Dick Cheney voting for the same candidate?) will have to continue to set aside profound differences for a larger purpose: defending the American Republic against MAGA’s nihilistic rage.“
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