How Far Down The Rabbit Hole Has The Republican Party Gone With Trump? Is There Anything Left?

Will Liz Cheney Be The Last Anti-MAGA Republican Left Standing?

Trump has many debilitating psychological conditions. The most commonly noted are narcissistic personality disorder (an inflated sense of self-importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy); antisocial personality disorder (disregard for the rights of others, impulsivity and a tendency to deceive and manipulate others without remorse; gaslighting sort of fits in here as well); paranoid personality disorder (pervasive distrust of others and belief that he is constantly being threatened or persecuted); and delusional disorder (fixed, false beliefs divergent from reality). One of Trump’s most noticeable psychological traits is his use of projection as a defense mechanism, which a psychological process that helps him cope with anxiety and threats to his self-esteem. By projecting his own negative thoughts or feelings onto others, he can avoid acknowledging or dealing with them internally. In his case it is also a manifestation of narcissistic traits and his need to maintain a positive self-image. Projecting their flaws onto others helps him feel superior and protects his ego from criticism. Trump's constant use of projection is an unhealthy and maladaptive coping mechanism that has damaged all of his relationships, prevented him from learning from mistakes, and contributed to a general atmosphere of distrust and division, which has proven to be absolutely catastrophic for the country.

His use of projection is on display weekly if not daily. Yesterday, for example, the media ran articles about Trump’s projection of his own much-discussed anti-democratic and authoritarian tendencies onto Joe Biden. Michael Gold writing from Cedar Rapids, Iowa noted that that the deranged and mentally ill Señor Trumpanzee repeatedly claimed to MAGAts there that it was “Biden who posed a severe threat to American democracy. While Trump shattered democratic norms throughout his presidency and has faced voter concerns that he would do so again in a second term, the former president in his speech repeatedly accused Biden of corrupting politics and waging a repressive ‘all-out war’ on America. ‘Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy,’ he said. ‘Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy.’”

In Cedar Rapids, knowing that the mass media would repeat it, Trump tried to defend against accusations that he’s an anti-democratic fascist piece of shit— by going on offense. On on Saturday, Trump and his campaign tried to turn the Biden campaign’s arguments that Trump is a threat to democracy back against the president, again, knowing full well that the mass media would parrot it and confuse easily confused voters.

Trump has a history of accusing his opponents of behavior that he himself is guilty of, the political equivalent of a “No, you are” playground retort. In a 2016 debate, when Hillary Clinton accused Trump of being a Russian puppet, Trump fired back with “You’re the puppet,” a comment he never explained.

Trump’s accusations against Biden, which he referenced repeatedly throughout his speech, veered toward the conspiratorial. He claimed the president and his allies were seeking to control Americans’ speech, their behavior on social media and their purchases of cars and dishwashers.

Without evidence, he accused Biden of being behind a nationwide effort to get Trump removed from the ballot in several states. And, as he has before, he claimed, again without evidence, that Biden was the mastermind behind the four criminal cases against him.

Here, too, Trump conjured a nefarious-sounding presidential conspiracy, one with dark ramifications for ordinary Americans, not just for the former president being prosecuted. Biden and his allies “think they can do whatever they want,” Trump said— “break any law, tell any lie, ruin any life, trash any norm, and get away with anything they want. Anything they want.”

Democrats suggested that the former president was projecting again.

“Donald Trump’s America in 2025 is one where the government is his personal weapon to lock up his political enemies,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for Biden’s re-election campaign, said in a statement. “You don’t have to take our word for it— Trump has admitted it himself.”

Even as he was insisting that Biden threatens democracy, Trump underscored his most antidemocratic campaign themes.

Having said that he would use the Justice Department to “go after” the Biden family, on Saturday, he swore that he would “investigate every Marxist prosecutor in America for their illegal, racist-in-reverse enforcement of the law.”

Trump has frequently decried the cases brought him against by Black prosecutors in New York and Atlanta as racist. (He does not apply that charge to the white special counsel in his two federal criminal cases, who he instead calls “deranged.”)

Yet Trump himself has a history of racist statements.

At an earlier event on Saturday, where he sought to undermine confidence in election integrity well before the 2024 election, he urged supporters in Ankeny, a predominantly white suburb of Des Moines, to take a closer look at election results next year in Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta, three cities with large Black populations in swing states that he lost in 2020.

“You should go into some of these places, and we’ve got to watch those votes when they come in,” Trump said. “When they’re being, you know, shoved around in wheelbarrows and dumped on the floor and everyone’s saying, ‘What’s going on?’

“We’re like a third-world nation,” he added.

Even Republican officials who accuse Trump of being an authoritarian, a danger, deranged, etc. almost universally say they will vote for him because Biden is somehow worse. I don’t know if they actually will vote for Trump, but they say they will, basically telling their followers that they should as well. Lindsey Graham has turned out to be one of Trump’s biggest ass-lickers, after he publicly said that Trump “is a complete idiot,” “a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot,” “a wrecking ball for the Republican Party, “the most unqualified person ever to run for president in my lifetime, “a demagogue, con man, bully.” How does Lindsey look at himself in the mirror as he encourages people to back Trump after he said “He has no clue about anything he is talking about in terms of how our laws work… His policy positions are complete gibberish… He's a fraud. He's a fake… He's unfit to be president of the United States… He would be an embarrassment to our country… He would make a terrible commander in chief.” And of course, it wasn’t just Lindsey Graham.

Ted Cruz:

• “He's a pathological liar.” (February 2016)

• “He's a carnival barker.” (March 2016)

• “He's a moral vacuum.” (April 2016)

• “He's a dangerous demagogue.” (May 2016)

• “He's a con artist.” (June 2016)

Marco Rubio:

• “He's a lightweight choker.” (February 2016)

• “He's a con man.” (March 2016)

• “He's a bully.” (April 2016)

• “He's a puppet of the special interests.” (May 2016)

• “He's a national embarrassment.” (June 2016)

Bob Corker, then a Tennessee senator, said Trump was “doing great damage to the Republican Party and the country,” even suggested Trump might be unfit for office due to mental instability. Like the others he ultimately endorsed Trump and campaigned for him. Ditto for then-Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) who called Trump “a narcissistic, amoral con man” and said he was “unfit to be president.” Eventually he also endorsed Trump and even spoke at the Republican National Convention.

I wonder what Chris Christie will do after he comes in third (at best) in the New Hampshire primary next month. Will he suspend his campaign? Probably. Will he endorse Trump”? Possibly. Will he endorse Biden to stop Trump? I wouldn’t bet on it— despite all the crap he’s said about Trump. Now Liz Cheney… that’s another story. During an interview with John Dickerson— she’s going to be on with Rachel Maddow tonight— she said she believes “very strongly in those principles and ideals that have defined the Republican Party, but the Republican Party of today has made a choice and they haven’t chosen the Constitution, and so I do think it presents a threat if the Republicans are in the majority in January 2025.”

She’s not just urging people to vote for someone other than Trump, she’s advocating that they vote for Democratic congressional candidates, rather than for her former colleagues. That takes guts. Her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, will be out tomorrow. Alluding back to how the Nazis took over Germany in the 1930s and how Hitler was able to bend the country to his corroded will, she said “If you look at what Donald Trump is trying to do, he can’t do it by himself. He has to have collaborators. And the story of Mike Johnson is a story of a collaborator.” Keep in mind that every single Republican member of Congress voted for MAGA Mike Johnson, not just the extremists and insurrectionists who share his dangerous worldview but even the Republicans who try to pass themselves off as normal and vaguely mainstream and who try to appeal to swing voters, like Tom Kean in New Jersey; Nick LaLota, Anthony D'Esposito, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams in New York; Don Bacon in Nebraska; Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania; Jen Kiggans in Virginia; Kevin Kiley, John Duarte, David Valadao, Mike Garcia, Young Kim, Ken Calvert and Michelle Steel in Californi; Bryan Steil in Wisconsin; Lori Chavez-DeRemer in Oregon, Zach Nunn, Marionnette Miller-Meeks and Ashley Hinson in Iowa; John James and Bill Huiizenga in Michigan and... no, there's no and; the rest of them don't even try tio hide it anymore.