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      Trump Is Blowing Apart the G.O.P. God Bless Him.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump Is Blowing Apart the G.O.P. God Bless Him.There still will be a place for principled Republicans.Opinion ColumnistJan. 12, 2021Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesWhen all the facts come out about the treasonous attack on the U.S. Capitol inspired by President Trump, impeaching him three times won’t feel sufficient. Consider this Washington Post headline from Monday: “Video Shows Capitol Mob Dragging Police Officer Down Stairs. One Rioter Beat the Officer With a Pole Flying the U.S. Flag.”That said, while I want Trump out — and I don’t mind him being silenced at such a tense time — I’m not sure I want him permanently off Twitter and Facebook. There’s important work that I need Trump to perform in his post-presidency, and I need him to have proper megaphones to do it. It’s to blow apart this Republican Party.My No. 1 wish for America today is for this Republican Party to fracture, splitting off the principled Republicans from the unprincipled Republicans and Trump cultists. That would be a blessing for America for two reasons.First, because it could actually end the gridlock in Congress and enable us to do some big things on infrastructure, education and health care that would help ALL Americans — not the least those in Trump’s camp, who are there precisely because they feel ignored, humiliated and left behind.If just a few principled center-right Republicans, like Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski, abandoned this G.O.P. or were simply willing to work with a center-left Biden team, the Problem Solvers Caucus in the House and like-minded members in the Senate — the people who got the recent stimulus bill passed — would become stronger than ever. That’s how we start to dial down the madness coursing through our nation and get us back to seeing each other as fellow citizens, not enemies.Second, if the principled Republicans split from the Trump cult, the rump pro-Trump G.O.P. would have a very hard time winning a national election anytime soon. And given what we’ve just seen, these Trumpers absolutely cannot be trusted with power again.Think about what they’ve done. All these Trump-cult lawmakers willingly promoted Trump’s Big Lie. And think how big it was: Trump took the most heroic election in American history — an election in which more Americans voted than ever before, freely and fairly in the midst of a deadly pandemic — and claimed it was all a fraud, because he didn’t win. And then, on the basis of that Big Lie, eight Republican senators and 139 House members voted to nullify Joe Biden’s electoral victory. That is sick.That is why I hope the party splits. And here is why a still noisy Trump could be so helpful in breaking it.What is it that Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz were dreaming of when they went full treason and tried to get Congress to reverse Biden’s win on the basis of the Big Lie? They were dreaming of a world of Trumpism without Trump. They thought that if they cravenly did Trump’s bidding now, once he was gone his base would be theirs.Hawley and Cruz are so power hungry, they would burn America to the ground if they thought they could be president of its ashes.But they’re fools. As Trump and his kids made clear at the rally that inspired some of his supporters to ransack the Capitol, the Trumps are interested only in Trumpism with Trumps.Or as Donald Trump Jr. explained to the soon-to-be rioters (whom Ivanka called “patriots”), the G.O.P. needed a wake-up. All those Republicans in Congress, said Don Jr., “did nothing to stop the steal. This gathering should send a message to them: This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party.”You tell ’em, Donny. The more you insist on that, the more principled Republicans will have to leave. And since a recent Quinnipiac survey showed that more than 70 percent of Republicans still support Trump, you can be sure he will keep insisting it is his party and keep saying vile things that will constitute daily loyalty tests for all Republican lawmakers, forcing them to answer if they are with him or not. That stress will be enormous.Check out the video of what happened when some Trump cultists ran into Senator Lindsey Graham at Reagan National Airport after last week’s riot. They mercilessly cursed him out as a “traitor” because for weeks he was telling them that Biden’s victory was not legitimate and then, after the sacking of the Capitol, he declared it was legitimate. Graham needed police protection from the Trumpers just to get to his plane.As Don Jr. might have told Graham: “Didn’t you get the memo? The Trump family puts its name on EVERYTHING we own. It’s no longer the G.O.P. — it’s the T.R.P.: The Trump Republican Party. You sold us your soul. You can’t reclaim it now from a pawnbroker. We still own the base, which means we still own YOU.”Or not. This is a time for choosing for Republicans. The old straddle — “I would never let Trump coach my kid’s Little League team, but I love his tax cuts, Israel policies, judges or abortion position” — won’t work anymore. Trump has gone too far, and the base is still with him. So it really is his party. Every Republican is going to have to ask himself and herself: Is it still mine, too?If you look closely, there are actually four different Republican factions today: principled conservatives, cynically tactical conservatives, unprincipled conservatives and Trump cultists. In the principled conservatives camp, I’d put Romney and Murkowski. They are the true America firsters. While animated by conservative ideas about small government and free markets, they put country and Constitution before party and ideology. They are rule-abiders.In the cynically tactical conservative camp, which you could call the Mitch McConnell camp, I’d put all of those who tried to humor Trump for a while — going along with his refusal to acknowledge the election results until “all the legal votes were counted” — but once the Electoral College votes were cast by each state, slid into the reality-based world and confirmed Biden’s victory, some sooner than others.“I call them the ‘rule-benders,’” explained pollster Craig Charney. “They are ready to bend the rules but not break them.”The unprincipled Republicans — the “rule-breakers” in Charney’s lingo — are led by Hawley and Cruz, along with the other seditious senators and representatives who tried to get Congress to block its ceremonial confirmation of Biden’s election.Finally, there are the hard-core Trump cultists and QAnon conspiracy types, true believers in and purveyors of the Big Lie.I just don’t see how these four camps stay together. And for America’s sake, I hope they don’t.But Democrats will have a say in this, too. This is their best opportunity in years to get some support from center-right Republicans. Be smart: Ban the phrase “defund the police.” Talk instead about “better policing,” which everyone can get behind. Instead of “democratic socialism,” talk about “more just and inclusive capitalism.” And tone down the politically correct cancel culture on college campuses and in newsrooms. While it’s not remotely in the league of those trying to cancel a whole election, it’s still corrosive.I know, it looks real dark right now. But if you look at the diverse, high-quality center-left cabinet that Biden has assembled and the principled, center-right Republicans who are looking to be problem solvers, not Trump soldiers, maybe that light in the tunnel isn’t a train coming at us after all.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Did the Capitol Attack Break Trump’s Spell?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyDid the Capitol Attack Break the President’s Spell?Either the beginning of the end for Trump, or America.Opinion ColumnistJan. 7, 2021A scarf discarded at the Capitol after the mob incursion on Wednesday.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesIt was probably always going to come to this. Donald Trump has been telling us for years that he would not accept an electoral defeat. He has cheered violence and threatened insurrection. On Tuesday he tweeted that Democrats and Republicans who weren’t cooperating in his coup attempt should look “at the thousands of people pouring into D.C. They won’t stand for a landslide election victory to be stolen.” He urged his supporters to mass on the capital, tweeting, “Be there, will be wild!” They took him seriously and literally.The day after Georgia elected its first Black senator — the pastor, no less, of Martin Luther King Jr.’s church — and its first Jewish senator, an insurgent marched through the halls of Congress with a Confederate banner. Someone set up a noose outside. Someone brought zip-tie handcuffs. Lest there be any doubt about their intentions, a few of the marauders wore T-shirts that said “MAGA Civil War, Jan. 6, 2021.”If you saw Wednesday’s scenes in any other country — vandals scaling walls and breaking windows, parading around the legislature with enemy flags and making themselves at home in quickly abandoned governmental offices — it would be obvious enough that some sort of putsch was underway.Yet we won’t know for some time what the attack on the Capitol means for this country. Either it marked the beginning of the end of Trumpism, or another stage in the unraveling of American liberal democracy.There is at least some cause for a curdled sort of optimism. More than any other episode of Trump’s political career — more than the “Access Hollywood” tape or Charlottesville — the day’s desecration and mayhem threw the president’s malignancy into high relief. For years, many of us have waited for the “Have you no sense of decency?” moment when Trump’s demagogic powers would deflate like those of Senator Joseph McCarthy before him. The storming of Congress by a human 8chan thread in thrall to Trump’s delusions may have been it.Since it happened, there have been once-unthinkable repudiations of the president. The National Association of Manufacturers, a major business group, called on Vice President Mike Pence to consider invoking the 25th Amendment. Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr, who’d been one of Trump’s most craven defenders, accused the president of betraying his office by “orchestrating a mob.”Several administration officials resigned, including Trump’s former chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who’d been serving as special envoy to Northern Ireland. In an interview with CNBC, Mulvaney was astonishingly self-pitying, complaining that people who “spent time away from our families, put our careers on the line to go work for Donald Trump,” will now forever be remembered for serving “the guy who tried to overtake the government.”Mulvaney’s insistence that the president is “not the same as he was eight months ago” is transparent nonsense. But his weaselly effort to distance himself is still heartening, a sign that some Republicans suddenly realize that association with Trump has stained them. When the rats start jumping, you know the ship is sinking.So Trump’s authority is ebbing before our eyes. Having helped deliver the Senate to Democrats, he’s no longer much use to Republicans like Mitch McConnell. With two weeks left in the president’s term, social media has invoked its own version of the 25th Amendment. Twitter, after years of having let Trump spread conspiracy theories and incite brutality on its platform, suddenly had enough: It deleted three of his tweets, locked his account and threatened “permanent suspension.” Facebook and Instagram blocked the president for at least the remainder of his term. He may still be able to launch a nuclear strike in the next two weeks, but he can’t post.Yet the forces Trump has unleashed can’t simply be stuffed back in the bottle. Most of the Republican House caucus still voted to challenge the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election. And the MAGA movement’s terrorist fringe may be emboldened by Wednesday’s incursion into the heart of American government.“The extremist violent faction views today as a huge win,” Elizabeth Neumann, a former Trump counterterrorism official who has accused the president of encouraging white nationalists, told me on Wednesday. She pointed out that “The Turner Diaries,” the seminal white nationalist novel, features a mortar attack on the Capitol. “This is like a right-wing extremist fantasy that has been fulfilled,” she said.Neumann believes that if Trump immediately left office — either via impeachment, the 25th Amendment or resignation — it would temporarily inflame right-wing extremists, but ultimately marginalize them. “Having such a unified, bipartisan approach, that he is dangerous, that he has to be removed,” would, she said, send “such a strong message to the country that I hope that it wakes up a number of people of good will that have just been deceived.”In a Twitter thread on Thursday, Kathleen Belew, a scholar of the white power movement, wrote about how, in “The Turner Diaries,” the point of the assault on Congress wasn’t causing mass casualties. It was “showing people that even the Capitol can be attacked.”Trump’s mob has now demonstrated to the world that the institutions of American democracy are softer targets than most of us imagined. What happens to Trump next will tell us all whether this ailing country still has the will to protect them.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Will Trump Force Principled Conservatives to Start Their Own Party? I Hope So

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyWill Trump Force Principled Conservatives to Start Their Own Party? I Hope SoAmerican politics will be shaped by the influence of the monarch of Mar-a-Lago.Opinion ColumnistDec. 22, 2020Credit…Samuel Corum for The New York TimesAs the Trump presidency heads into the sunset, kicking and screaming, one of the most important questions that will shape American politics at the local, state and national levels is this: Can Donald Trump maintain his iron grip over the Republican Party when he is out of office?This is what we know for sure: He damn well intends to try and is amassing a pile of cash to do so. And here is what I predict: If Trump keeps delegitimizing Joe Biden’s presidency and demanding loyalty for his extreme behavior, the G.O.P. could fully fracture — splitting between principled Republicans and unprincipled Republicans. Trump then might have done America the greatest favor possible: stimulating the birth of a new principled conservative party.Santa, if you’re listening, that’s what I want for Christmas!Wishful thinking? Maybe. But here’s why it’s not entirely fanciful: If Trump refuses to ever acknowledge Biden’s victory and keeps roasting those Republicans who do — and who “collaborate” with the new administration — something is going to crack.There will be increasing pressure on the principled Republicans — people like Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and the judges, election officials and state legislators who put country before party and refused to buckle under Trump’s demands — to break away and start their own conservative party.If that happens, the unprincipled Trump Republicans — like the 126 House members who joined with the Texas attorney general in a shameful Supreme Court case to nullify Biden’s victory — could have a harder time winning office. That would be a good thing in its own right.More important, even if just a few principled conservatives came together and created a kind of third party in Congress, they could be kingmakers. With the Senate so finely balanced, moderates on each side have significant leverage.We just saw that with the relief bill negotiations, which Trump, on cue, is now threatening to undo. It was the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus — coalesced by the centrist movement No Labels — and an informal bipartisan group of senators that produced the deal from the bottom up.Imagine Biden’s center-left Democrats and principled center-right conservatives working together on fixes for infrastructure, immigration, Obamacare or climate — without Trump around to disrupt any progress.Wishful thinking? Maybe. But one thing I learned covering the Middle East is that there is only one reliable thing about extremists — they don’t know when to stop. So, in the end, they almost always go over the cliff, taking a lot of people with them.Donald Trump is a political extremist. He does not stop at red lights. He does not abide by norms, ethics or the truth. As a result, his huge disinformation campaign against Biden’s election, and his attacks on Republican officeholders and right-wing media that won’t parrot his lies and conspiracy theories, is already fracturing the party at the state level in places like Georgia and Arizona.It’s drawing a sharp distinction between principled Republicans who chose to put their constitutional obligations before Trump’s interests and the unprincipled ones who either are too cowardly to speak up or eagerly hopped into the Trump clown car to secure his blessings for their next election.Think of two recent images. The first is of the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, on Dec. 15 briskly walking past a CNN reporter who was asking him a simple question: Would he acknowledge that Joe Biden was the president-elect? McCarthy was too cowardly or too unprincipled to answer.If you’re a Republican lawmaker, do you really want to spend the next four years running away from CNN every time you’re asked to opine about the latest demented thing Donald Trump has said or done — because you’re afraid that he’ll launch a primary attack against you with his devoted base if you show integrity?The contrasting image is of Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey. It’s Dec. 1 and Ducey is literally signing the papers certifying his state’s election results and officially awarding Biden its 11 electors — ignoring Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud in Arizona.Ducey’s cellphone rings, but it is no ordinary ringtone. It is “Hail to the Chief,” a ringtone Ducey installed in July so that he would never miss a call from Trump. But this time Ducey simply takes the phone out of his pocket, silences it, puts it aside and goes on signing the papers.According to a report in The Hill, “Trump later called into a hearing with state Republicans that was happening during the certification” and “tore into Ducey,” declaring, “Arizona will not forget what Ducey just did.” Trump was right, but not in the way he predicted.On Saturday, CNN described the civil war that has broken out in Arizona: “G.O.P. party leaders and elected officials who’ve gone all-in for Trump, backed by right-wing media, have relentlessly attacked those who can’t bring themselves to go along with the lame-duck president’s refusal to concede. To be sure, similar splits exist across the G.O.P. nationwide. But the infighting in Arizona offers a clear picture of why some Republicans fear that if Trump continues stirring up and directing his followers once he’s out of office, the party may cripple itself at the state and local level.”The story added: “‘Some Republicans have decided to file for divorce from reality, facts be damned,’ said Barrett Marson, a publicist who worked for Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s political action committee. … Perhaps most notable in the subsequent salvos was a tweet from the governor’s chief of staff, Daniel Scarpinato, to ‘Freedom Caucus’ chair Rep. Andy Biggs calling him nuts and ending, ‘Enjoy your time as a permanent resident of Crazytown.’”To be sure, calling Ducey a “principled Republican” is a low bar, considering that he had no problem backing Trump all the way until now. Unlike other Trump-friendly Republicans, though, he was ready to draw a constitutional redline he would not cross.But every day that goes by Trump shows us that as his power decreases, he surrounds himself with more and more unprincipled crackpots, who fan his delusions and propose more and more extreme actions, like Michael Flynn’s neofascist suggestion of declaring martial law and rerunning the election in some states Trump lost.Therefore, the stress that Trump creates will surely get only worse after he leaves the White House, when, to stay relevant, he’ll need to say ever more extreme things that keep his base — now fully marinated in his conspiracy theories — energized and ready to attack any principled Republican who deviates from Trump. Also, all those Fox News commentators who prostituted themselves to Trump (and their ratings), helping to make his extreme base even more extreme, can’t stop now. They’ll lose their audience.They’re all extremists who can’t stop, and principled conservatives understand that. Listen to Evan McMullin, the former C.I.A. operations officer and later chief policy director for the House Republican Conference, who resigned in 2016 to run for president as an independent:“Even though Mr. Trump has been defeated, there is still no home for Republicans committed to representative government, truth and the rule of law, nor is one likely to emerge anytime soon,” wrote McMullin in this newspaper. “So what’s next for Republicans who reject their party’s attempts to incinerate the Constitution in the service of one man’s authoritarian power grabs? … The answer is that we must further develop an intellectual and political home, for now, outside of any party. From there, we can continue working with other Americans to defeat Mr. Trump’s heirs, help offer unifying leadership to the country and, if the Republican Party continues on its current path, launch a party to challenge it directly.”Call me mad, but my gut tells me that when Trump is just the monarch of Mar-a-Lago — just spewing venom — some Republicans will say “enough.” Somewhere in there a new party of principled conservatives might just get born.Wishful thinking? Maybe. But what a blessing that would be for America.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      A Conservative Justice in Wisconsin Says He Followed the Law, Not the Politics

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      Should NeverTrump Conservatives Form A New Party?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyShould NeverTrump Conservatives Form A New Party?In the wake of Trump’s electoral defeat and political survival, principled Republicans must offer their own vision for America.Mr. McMullin, a former C.I.A. operations officer, was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference. In 2016, he resigned to run for president as an independent candidate.Dec. 15, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Tom Brenner for The New York TimesDonald Trump’s refusal to accept his electoral defeat is alarming, but unsurprising. It is Mr. Trump’s character to reject even reality itself when it conflicts with his ego. More alarming is the long list of state and national Republican leaders cravenly falling in line behind his desperate efforts to topple American democracy.On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit to overturn the election, a legal challenge that was as frivolous as it was anti-constitutional. Yet more than 60 percent of House Republicans signed a supporting brief, joining 18 Republican attorneys general who filed their own and embracing entirely the unreality of Trumpism by lending their names to undoing an election that put them in office.These were not just fringe elements. The minority leader Kevin McCarthy and the whip Steve Scalise signed their names, as did the incoming ranking member for the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Some, such as Kevin Brady, Bill Flores and Ann Wagner, were Republicans who the NeverTrump movement once hoped would break with the president once we made him an electoral loser.That they instead clung to his mad king strategy, like sailors lashed to the mast of a sinking ship, proves that the majority of the party has, at least for the foreseeable future, forsaken democracy. Even though Trump has been defeated, there is still no home for Republicans committed to representative government, truth and the rule of law, nor is one likely to emerge anytime soon.So what’s next for Republicans who reject their party’s attempts to incinerate the Constitution in the service of one man’s authoritarian power grabs? Where is our home now?The answer is that we must further develop an intellectual and political home, for now, outside of any party. From there, we can continue working with other Americans to defeat Trump’s heirs, help offer unifying leadership to the country and, if the GOP continues on its current path, launch a party to challenge it directly.Although we hoped that defeating Trump would start to right the Republican ship, our efforts over the last four years have not been in vain. We defeated and removed immoral and dishonorable Republicans like Roy Moore, Dana Rohrabacher, Steve King and Martha McSally. We turned out to ensure that Democrats nominated a unifying leader who a majority of voters could support. And we were a key part of the coalition that defeated Trump himself.But the NeverTrump movement has mostly been inward looking thus far. It emerged to defeat Mr. Trump and defend foundational principles such as self-government, liberty and justice, sovereignty, pluralistic society, the sanctity of all life, decency and objective truth.But to turn back Trump’s dangerous ideology, which has survived his defeat, and move America forward, we must build on these ideals and look beyond ourselves.We must now offer our own vision for the country capable of uniting more Republicans, Democrats and independents to advance solutions to the immense challenges we face. Because Trumpism will be on the ballot again, in 2022 and 2024.It should start with unyielding commitment to the equality and liberty of all, and then to facts, reason and knowledge. It should champion democracy and its improvement and cherish life in all its phases. It should promote personal responsibility, limited government and government’s vital role for the common good. It should advance for justice to all, and uphold the personal and religious freedom of a diverse people. It should expand economic opportunity, rejecting cronyism and protectionism, while defending innovators and workers from theft and predatory practices abroad. It should recognize immigration as a vital national asset and universal access to quality health care, public and private, a national obligation. It should imagine new methods of learning and work. It should be decent, ethical and loyal to the Constitution.If the coalition that defeated Trump and elected President-elect Joe Biden, of which we are a part, fails now to lead the nation past the coronavirus pandemic, widespread job losses and economic instability, social division and injustice, inaccessible health care, fiscal shortfalls and disinformation, we will invite a resurgence of Trumpism and even more formidable illiberalism in the future.Soon, we may field and promote our own slate of candidates running on either party’s ticket or as independents, but under our ideological banner. To advance this vision and support these candidates, we should further develop the infrastructure we’ve created over the last four years: including data firms, messaging platforms, research capabilities and grass roots networks.Eventually, we will have to make a decision: Will we return to a Republican Party liberated of fear, corruption and authoritarianism, or will we attempt to replace it with a new conservative alternative? Our hope is that we can still help foment a broad rejection of extremism inside the GOP. But our immediate task is to build our home for either eventuality, and to continue the fight for liberty, equality and truth.Evan McMullin is a former C.I.A. operations officer, former chief policy director of the House Republican Conference and was an independent candidate for president in 2016.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trump Has Never Believed in Democracy

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump Has Never Believed in DemocracyHe wants to wield power without winning it legitimately.Opinion ColumnistDec. 13, 2020A supporter of President Trump during a rally near the Supreme Court on Saturday to protest the results of the 2020 election.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesDonald Trump’s continued effort to overturn the result of the election — an effort buttressed by the support of many Republicans in Congress, it should be noted — is nothing short of an attempt at a bloodless coup.The only way Trump could achieve his aim of denying Joe Biden his rightfully earned victory would be if some people or entities — state legislatures, judges or the Supreme Court — were to agree to throw out millions of legally cast and appropriate votes. (It is also worth noting that many of the jurisdictions being disputed are heavily Black.)But a stinging defeat in the Supreme Court, packed with three justices of Trump’s own choosing, seems to have slammed the door on any legal path Trump might have had in his outrageous endeavor. The members of the Electoral College will meet on Monday and choose the next president. Barring any extraordinary and unprecedented developments, they will select Joe Biden, as the people already have.And yet, on Saturday Trump continued to insist on Twitter that “I WON THE ELECTION IN A LANDSLIDE,” and that the Supreme Court ruling was incorrect: “This is a great and disgraceful miscarriage of justice. The people of the United States were cheated, and our Country disgraced. Never even given our day in Court!”That same day, Trump flew over a “Stop the Steal” rally at Washington’s Freedom Plaza, where the Proud Boys were a prominent presence.He keeps lying to his supporters, telling them — partly out of pride, partly out of a craven quest for power — that he was cheated and that he actually won the election. Many of them believe him. Right-wing media have aided him in his deception, as have Republican officials, either through their public pronouncements or through their silence.On Sunday, the House minority whip, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and said:“If you want to restore trust by millions of people who are still very frustrated and angry about what happened, that’s why you got to have this whole system play out.”But of course this isn’t about restoring faith in our elections; rather, it is about allowing Trump to further degrade that faith. Scalise and many other Republicans are accomplices in this crime against our democracy. Trump is still trying to steal this election, and they are outside revving the engine of the getaway car.That a majority of all Republicans in the House of Representatives expressed support for the frivolous Texas lawsuit signals to me that the difference between liberals and conservatives is no longer about values; it is now about a fundamental belief in democracy. Republicans appear to be saying that not all votes matter or should be counted. This is voter suppression on the grandest of scales, because it is an attempt at voter erasure, at eliminating votes that have already been cast and counted.All the while, Trump has continued to use the division and deception he has created to raise money. He has now collected more than $200 million in donations in support of his bogus election recounts.But, as The New York Times reported earlier this month:“Mr. Trump’s campaign apparatus has continued to aggressively solicit donations under the guise of supporting his various legal challenges to the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr., but as of now 75 percent of donations goes to a new political action committee that Mr. Trump formed in mid-November, up to the PAC’s legal limit of $5,000. The other 25 percent goes to the Republican National Committee. Only if a donor gives more than $6,000 do any funds go to Mr. Trump’s formal ‘recount’ account.”Trump has realized that trying to steal the presidency is more lucrative than actually being president, so he won’t stop. We are witnessing one of the greatest grifts in the history of the presidency.The presidency gave Trump something he always craved but never possessed: constant attention and real, legitimate power. And, once tasted, power is craved forever.Trump has never believed in American democracy. He was never a student of history. He was never really a patriot.When he foreshadowed his current behavior in 2016 by refusing to say that he would accept the results of that election as legitimate if he didn’t win, we knew. When he cozied up to the world’s dictators and spurned our allies, we knew. When he winked at hate groups by refusing to immediately and fulsomely condemn them, we knew.Trump wants to operate a dictatorship behind a veil of democracy. He wants to wield power without winning it legitimately. He wants to manipulate his mob and prioritize it above the masses who oppose him.Yes, Trump is attempting a coup, whether or not you want to call it that. But, no matter what you choose to call something, it will still be what it is.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More