The Perils of the Trump Addiction
We have to let it go.
The past three weeks have brought a flurry of stories about Joe Biden, the coronavirus, vaccines, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. But there have been almost as many stories about what exactly former president Donald Trump is doing right now. The most recent of these was a New York article from last week, “What’s Trump Up To?” This story joined “Why Has Donald Trump Clammed Up?” also from New York, “What will Donald Trump Do Now?” from the Telegraph, and “So What’s Donald Trump Been Up To?” from Gizmodo, which have all been published since January 29th.
Trump’s silence has been deafening. A tweet by conservative writer J.D. Vance blamed this status on Trump’s ban from Twitter. But as Matthew Yglesias and others pointed out, Twitter is not the only way that a person can get their message out in 2021: “the fact is he hasn’t been banned from Fox or talk radio or from launching a Substack or going on Clubhouse … for whatever reason he has chosen to lay low.”
The Republican Party is clearly addicted to Donald Trump. His supporters are party line zealots on most issues. He brings in fundraising dollars. His 2020 campaign helped the party nearly regain control of the House of Representatives, even though his antics cost it control of the Senate in 2021. Most importantly, Trump’s rise has convinced Republican politicians that…