At a presidential campaign event in Iowa in early 2016, Donald Trump famously told a crowd, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."
Eight years later, Trump is running for president a third time and is almost certain to receive his party's nomination. The Republican Party is once again rallying around Trump just as The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson predicted they would.
In a column published by the New York Times on March 10, Never Trump conservative Peter Wehner laments that the GOP has been taken over by "5th Avenue Republicans" — meaning Republicans who will rush to his defense regardless of what he does. And he warns that they have become even more "radical, unhinged and cult-like."
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"For the thousandth time, the Republican Party refused an off-ramp that would free itself from Donald Trump," Wehner observes. "As long as he's around, it never will. In this year's presidential primary campaign, the party had the chance to nominate Nikki Haley, a successful, conservative former two-term governor of South Carolina. Unlike Mr. Trump's, her public career hasn't been characterized by a lifetime of moral squalor. And many polls show she would be a more formidable candidate against President Biden than Mr. Trump."
Wehner continues, "No matter. Mr. Trump decimated Ms. Haley, most recently on Super Tuesday. She suspended her campaign the next day. But she never had a chance."
According to Wehner, "5th Avenue Republicans" tirelessly defense Trump on everything from the January 6, 2021 insurrection to his many legal problems.
"Today, many Republicans not only profess to believe that the election was stolen," Wehner observes. "Prominent members of Congress like Rep. Elise Stefanik and Sen. J.D. Vance say they would not have certified the 2020 election results, as Vice President Mike Pence, to his credit, did. Mike Johnson, who played a leading role in trying to overturn the election, is speaker of the House."
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The conservative columnist adds, "Republicans not only excuse the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Mr. Trump and his party also now glorify the insurrectionists. At his kickoff campaign rally for 2024, a song called 'Justice for All' played, featuring Mr. Trump and the J6 Prison Choir, made up of prisoners charged with crimes related to the riot."
"Traditional conservatives" who refuse to be "5th Avenue Republicans," according to Wehner, are being driven out of the GOP.
"Mr. Trump is a human blowtorch, prepared to burn down democracy," Wehner warns. "So is his party."
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Peter Wehner's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).