The Convert

The radicalization of Mike Lee.

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Sens. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rob Portman talk as the Senate impeachment trial of then-U.S. President Donald Trump continues at the U.S. Capitol on January 31, 2020. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The most interesting question about Republicans who’ve accommodated themselves to Trumpism is one that can never be answered definitively.

Cynic or convert?

Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Elise Stefanik, Marco Rubio: You and I can guess whether they’re opportunists who’ve made peace with MAGA to protect themselves in primaries or whether they’ve talked themselves into believing sincerely that America must be cleansed of leftist “vermin.” But all we’re doing is guessing. Only they know for sure.

To complicate matters, hardly anyone left among the right’s political establishment is clearly either one or the other. We can safely say that most Republicans in Washington began as cynics about Trump, but the human mind resists cynicism as a permanent state. An opportunist who knows that he or she is engaged in something sleazy inevitably will start to rationalize why it isn’t. It’s actually virtuous!

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  1. Avatar photo
    HappyCow

    If you're a conservative who, out of principle, would never vote for Donald Trump while still voting for Mike Lee or others like him in down-ballot races, you may as well vote for Trump.

    These assholes need to be defeated.

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  2. Goatprairie

    I would guess that the great majority of the spineless weasels currently called Republican Congress Critters know Trump legitimately lost in 2020. Furthermore, I would bet the same number probably consider him to be the supreme scoundrel that he is. Of course, they say that in private.
    Nevertheless, it's nice to be a Congress Critter. Why throw that all away just on principle/integrity issues? Yes, why indeed? Who cares about integrity/morality? Certainly, not most of the greasy-pole climbing, elected clowns in the Republican Party.

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  3. Marckaris7

    Is Josh Hawley more like Mike Lee or Ted Cruz? A true believer, Mike Lee as sad as that is, or whatever Ted Cruz is…?

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  4. Stephen Clay Settle

    Mike Lee is proof that American politics have devolved from an exercise in neuroses to psychosis. And the First Church of Trump is, granted, a cult whose devotees seem intent on committing political suicide, if only gradually and by degrees.

    That said, to continue to describe Donald Trump as "authoritarian" offers proof in itself of how malformed our political vocabulary has become. Trump is the personification of Americans' legendary and celebrated defiance of any and all authority, the just along with the unjust, religious and secular alike. He is the all too self-conscious toddler screaming "Don't tread on me," which is to say, "Don't tell me what to do" and "You're not the boss of me!"

    Trump epitomizes this perennial attitude of autonomy, bereft of any deference to the common good. He embodies an abiding hermeneutics of suspicion toward authority and its restraining influence on one's supposedly sovereign self. He is the animate equivalent of that July 4th sky rocket that won't wait to be projected into the air, but must self-detonate on the round, threatening the health and safety of everyone and everything in its vicinity.

    Trump despises the military. Ask his former staffer, Marine John F. Kelly, who "mustanged" his way up the hierarchy from buck private to four-star general (no, you don't do that by kissing posteriors). According to General Kelly, Trump stood at the grave of a fallen American warrior and mused, "I don't get it. What was in it for them?" And yet, for better or worse, authoritarians both of the left-wing and right-wing varieties typically adore all things military. They can't wait to get up in the morning and don one's uniform, whether it's Stalin, Castro, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Peron, or name your own. (Okay, ayatollahs prefer turbans and robes, but the principle still holds.)

    Trump's ubiquitous navy suit and red tie may strike some haute couturians as a uniform of sorts, but it's not, and why? Because it represents nothing other than and greater than - let's say it - himself.

    It may not occur in my lifetime, but I heartily suspect that before too long this noble experiment we call America may require a true authoritarian to come to the fore to rescue it from ourselves. It may take a leader akin to the Athenian legislator Draco, who held power in Athens in the 7th Century B.C. Yes, it's from him that devotees of liberal democracy derive the pejorative "draconian," and he was a tough boss, no doubt. But he brought order to a society on the verge of anarchy, thus making possible the reforms of Solon who immediately followed him. It's not too far a stretch, indeed, to suggest that Draco in saving Athens may have saved Western civilization.

    As authoritarians go, he was the real deal. Our playboy Trump? Not so much.

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  5. BPhillips

    Eh, I don't really care if they really are Trumpists or just pretending - either way they aren't fit to govern.

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  6. Leila.Punger

    It is beyond my understanding that anyone supports Trump!! He is morally corrupt and intellectually feeble.
    Everyone should read It Could Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. It is scary and so relevant to Trump and today.

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  7. Janicewfahy

    Great piece.

    The Republican Party is dead and gone, a malignant thing which must now be excised from the body politic root and branch.

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  8. DALE Nathan SWITZER

    Tribalism is incredibly powerful. I tell my family what the Trump team is bragging about doing, how this is not even disguised fascism, it's openly expressed fascism.

    The response is "but the democrats", "but trans", "but xxxx lost his job for not announcing his pronouns"

    And then the real kicker: "Are you liberal now?"

    No, I'm an American. I've always been an American. My tribe is America. I believed in American Exceptionalism because Americans believed in The Declaration of Independence and The Bill of Rights. But apparently my tribe is too small.

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    1. Pbeaupre3141

      When someone's tribe behaves in a way that is in opposition to the values that that tribe was supposed to hold dear, that creates cognitive dissonance. My theory is that humans have to resolve that dissonance, and do so in one of three ways:
      1. Claim that they have stopped following the news. They are above the fray! Therefore they don't have to face the hard truths about their tribe's misbehavior. Oh, they might silently pull the lever for their (former) tribe on Election Day. But they don't want to have to defend publicly how they are supporting an authoritarian, after a lifetime of advocating for the Constitution and separation of powers. (The kicker is that they pat themselves on the back for being above the fray). This move is for the cowardly.

      2. Go all in for the tribe, as Mike Lee has. Nick described the transition perfectly. This move is for the weak-minded. Their principles are so malleable that their tribe can rewrite them in real-time. Nick says Mike Lee is principled, it's just that he his principles have changed. Maybe. But then that means these are the principles of a very weak man, who hasn't interrogated *why* he holds his principles. Turns out they were the bumper stickers of a weak man.

      3. Break from the tribe. Insist that your loyalties are not only to the Conservative tribe, but to Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans, Democrats... your loyalties are to America. This doesn't mean you turn your back on your former tribe. It just means that you are advocating for principles not defined by your former tribe. You are advocating for Principles with a capital P, regardless of which tribe is advocating for them or opposing them. You are advocating for values, not flawed leaders. This strategy is for the lionhearted.

      I have seen one of my friends execute #3. He is so much happier now, and constantly realizing the insidiousness (e.g., casual racism) that he grew around. Now he is free to question that, and his principles have deepened.

      Cheers. It sounds like you are one of the lionhearted.

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      1. DALE Nathan SWITZER

        I think it is combined with the sunken cost fallacy. People have invested their identity with the tribe and, like a gambler tries to make it up by putting more in until bankruptcy.

        This is how politicians have become morally bankrupt

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      2. Avatar photo
        Kmregan7

        It’s a truly difficult thing to do number three (I say this as a liberal). I’m constantly trying to guard myself and to try to remain open minded. I admit that those toward the left could easily fall prey to a Trump and go down just like Republicans. So far it hasn’t happened- but we aren’t immune. Should not happen, here’s hoping I can be strong enough to admit it.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Dexember

    Sam Harris has an interesting podcast where he talks about the complete conviction in one's own beliefs as a key component of the 10/7 Hamas massacre. There is a throughline of conviction that makes otherwise good people (judged as kindly behavior to others) to act and say horrendous, evil things. I think Mike Lee is judged by Nick to be another victim of his own arrogant conviction of his rightness.

    There is no easy answer on this topic. We applaud people who stubbornly stood by their own convictions to do the "right" thing against peer pressure. Where is the line between conviction and openness to change? We applaud the "community" of religion and other civic institutions, but these are exactly the same groups that pressured, reinforced, and gave rewards to people for making conviction without doubts a virtue. Whether that's Hamas, the Proud Boys, Antifa, the Republican Party or the Baptist Church.

    I feel like there is a tension here, similar to small towns communities vs big city isolation, where the strengths and weaknesses are hard to balance out. All the idolatry of "Faith > Fear" that has taken root in much of the Christian world. Balance is tough.

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  10. Harryanderson74

    I believe this about Mike Lee because I've witnessed others, even family, shift their principles to accommodate Trump. First, they rationalize an outrage. Then, their need to avoid self-loathing causes them to rationalize their previous rationalization. Now, they're primed to accept bigger departures from their initial attitude. And on and on. I think the antidote is humility. If we don't have to believe we're always 'right,' we don't have to change our principles.

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