On MAGA Primaries

It's Always Been a Getaway Car

Donald Trump’s campaign against Republicans who opposed him is almost always universally described as revenge. Easy story: they crossed him, he never forgets a slight, and now he is settling scores.

I don’t think that’s right, exactly.

Revenge may be part of the story, but it is probably not the most important part. What we are watching feels much more deliberate, because Trump might not easily forget slights, but even more so, he doesn’t forget who is weak enough to lean on.

Look at the list of Republicans who paid the highest political price for breaking with Trump. In the House, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Peter Meijer, Tom Rice, Anthony Gonzalez, Fred Upton, Jaime Herrera Beutler, John Katko and others either lost their seats, retired, or concluded there was no future for them inside today’s Republican Party. In the Senate, Richard Burr, Pat Toomey, Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse all left office, while Bill Cassidy lost a Trump-backed primary challenge because of his vote to convict after January 6. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski remain in office but tread carefully.

Most commentators stop there and conclude that Trump simply wanted retribution. That tracks, because he is a small, vindictive man. There is undoubtedly truth in that interpretation. Trump has always valued loyalty and has never hidden his resentment toward those he believes betrayed him. But he also makes real nice with those who can enable him, and it would be a mistake to confuse an emotional explanation with a strategic one. The better question is not why Trump is angry with these people. The better question is why removing them from positions of influence continues to matter years after the impeachment votes themselves have faded into his story.

Trump has been exceptional at one thing in his life, identifying those even more cowardly than he is and using it to his advantage.

Every presidency ends. Donald Trump is constitutionally limited to just this term. Sure, he could try to stay in office. But that didn’t work last time. So when he leaves, the power of the presidency disappears, but Congress retains every constitutional tool available to investigate the actions of a former administration. Committees can issue subpoenas, compel testimony, request financial records, and shape the public narrative surrounding a former president. Those powers become meaningful only if the people holding them choose to use them.

That possibility changes the way I think about Republican primaries. If a former president anticipated political or legal scrutiny after leaving office, one of the most valuable assets he could possess would not be another executive order or another campaign rally. It would be a Congress populated by allies who had every political incentive to look forward rather than backward. Whether those future questions involve financial matters, executive decisions, or ICE killings, the first and most effective line of defense is political rather than legal. Investigations begin because elected officials decide they should begin, and they die because elected officials decide they should not.

Viewed through that lens, Bill Cassidy and Thomas Massie look different. His impeachment vote is now several years in the past, yet replacing him continues to matter. A successful primary challenge does more than remove one senator. It sends a message to every ambitious Republican who hopes to remain in office. Independence may satisfy your conscience today, but loyalty may determine whether you have a political future tomorrow. This isn’t revenge, per se. It’s making sure you have a getaway car for the bank heist.

History offers countless examples of leaders who understood that formal power eventually expires while informal influence can endure for years. The surest way to preserve that influence is to shape the incentives of the people who inherit the institutions you leave behind. Fear often succeeds where persuasion fails, and examples are remembered far longer than speeches. A defeated Liz Cheney or a Bill Cassidy is first, one less vote on a subcommittee to investigate Trump, and second, a message that you still own enough of the second most important currency in DC behind money to demand respect: votes.

Some legal scholars have debated whether a president could attempt to pardon himself before leaving office. The Constitution has never been tested on that question, and no court has provided a definitive answer because no president has successfully attempted it. But Trump stocked the Court with his own justices, and they’ve already ruled that official acts of a President are above review.

Do you think Donald Trump’s hardening arteries will last longer than it will take for the case challenging the obvious bribes he is taking through Trump Coin to make its way to SCOTUS?

I don’t.

That is why I have become increasingly skeptical of the revenge narrative. Revenge is emotional and immediate. It satisfies a desire to punish someone for what they did yesterday. The MAGAfication of Congress isn’t about how he was embarrassed by a minor rebellion years ago, its about getting away with the theft occurring now. When difficult questions eventually arise after Trump leaves office, there will be fewer Republicans willing to ask them. The point is not simply to remove critics. The point is to replace them with people who understand exactly what happened to the last Republicans who chose independence over loyalty.

We often fail to recognize foreshadowing because it looks ordinary while it is unfolding. Only later do we realize that what appeared to be isolated political vendettas were actually preparations for a future contest that had not yet begun. Yes, Donald Trump is an imbecile who had to pay someone to take his SAT’s. But anything short of Trump dying someday in a prison infirmary means only that we, the ones who care about American democracy, are the suckers. And by that, I mean we didn’t realize he was shaping the political environment he expects to inherit after his presidency ends. Revenge may be the language we use to describe it today, but if you step back, it sure feels like a car parked in front of the bank with the engine running.