Former President Donald Trump has taken an unusual shift in his approach to politics, wrote Jim Newell for Slate: He's actually swallowing his pride and biting his tongue to avoid attacking fellow Republicans he believes have wronged him.
This was made apparent during his visit to Capitol Hill to meet with Republican lawmakers last week — the first time he had visited since the January 6 attack.
"In the House meeting, he made a peace offering to California Rep. David Valadao, one of the two remaining House Republicans who’d voted to impeach Trump," wrote Newell. "No such peace offerings were on the table during the 2022 primaries. He endorsed Florida Rep. Laurel Lee, too, a privilege not previously granted to members of Congress who’d endorsed Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary. He congratulated South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, a former enemy whom he’d tried to take out in 2022, on her recent primary win. He joked around with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’d recently directly defied his wishes by moving to oust Mike Johnson as House speaker. Greene nearly swooned recollecting the interaction in an interview afterward."
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This stands in stark contrast to his "chaos agent" behavior during the 2022 midterm contests, wrote Newell, where Trump attacked lawmakers who had criticized or moved to impeach him. Republicans came out of those contests with significantly fewer gains than they were hoping to have.
Moreover, he wrote, this all coincides with Trump running a campaign operation that is less drama-charged.
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"Think about the inside-the-campaign drama from previous cycles, and the faucet of daily stories about staff anarchy and failed efforts to control the candidate. People like Corey Lewandowski, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Paul Manafort, Brad Parscale, and Bill Stepien became household names for their roles in overseeing the ramshackle Trump operation, the 'strategy' for which was determined by whatever the candidate had on his mind at any given moment. This year, there’s little news from inside the Trump campaign, and no one outside of politics addicts knows who Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita are."
What all this probably means, he concluded, is that "Avoiding potential jail time has a way of focusing even the most untamable of minds."
