A President Who Can’t Put Aside Grudges, Even for Good News
The past week served as a preview of Mr. Trump’s post-presidency: no leadership on debates within his party, but keen attention to waging personal vendettas and cultivating his supporters.
President Trump was largely absent amid the vaccine breakthroughs and economic relief talks in the last week, one of the most consequential of his tenure.
President Trump was largely absent amid the vaccine breakthroughs and economic relief talks in the last week, one of the most consequential of his tenure.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Alexander BurnsJonathan Martin
By Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin
Dec. 20, 2020
It was among the most consequential weeks of President Trump’s tenure: Across the country, health care workers began receiving a lifesaving coronavirus vaccine. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers closed in on a deal for economic relief aimed at averting a deeper recession. And on Friday, federal regulators authorized a second vaccine.
Yet Mr. Trump was largely absent from those events. It was Vice President Mike Pence who held a call with governors on Monday to hail a “medical miracle,” and who received the Pfizer vaccine at week’s end on live television. Legislative leaders were the ones working late into the nights on a stimulus deal eventually reached on Sunday.
All the while Mr. Trump was conducting a Twitter-borne assault on Republicans for not helping him overturn the election results, even warning Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to “get tougher, or you won’t have a Republican Party anymore.” By this weekend, the president was considering naming a conspiracy theorist as special counsel to investigate voting fraud, for which there’s no evidence, asking his advisers about instituting martial law and downplaying a massive hack his own secretary of state attributed to Russia.
Seldom has the leader of an American political party done so much to strike fear into the hearts of his allies, but done so little to tackle challenges facing the country during his final days in office. Far from presenting the vaccine breakthroughs from Pfizer and Moderna as testaments to private-sector ingenuity and innovation — once a conservative creed — he was fixated on menacing Republicans who might dare to acknowledge Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president-elect.
That duality in Mr. Trump’s behavior — acting as a bystander while other leaders answered a crisis and simultaneously raging at Republicans who have inched away from him — also amounts to a preview of Mr. Trump’s post-presidency.
Gift Subscriptions to The Times, Cooking and Games.
Starting at A$25.
He has shown no interest in shaping the debates that lay ahead for Republicans, in tending to the party’s electoral health or in becoming a champion of America’s recovery. Rather, he seems intent on using his political platform to wage personal vendettas and stoke a shared sense of grievance with the voters he has long cultivated as a fan base.
Senator Mitt Romney, the Utah Republican, said the president’s fury blinded him to his last best chance to buff his legacy: visiting vaccine distribution sites and clinics to highlight the possibility of hope after nine months of national misery.
“The president could have made that the hallmark of his last days in office,” Mr. Romney said. “Instead, he’s seen as promoting conspiracy theories and evidence-free accusations of fraud, which lead to a color of a sore loser.”
Some Republicans see an upside ahead — especially those who have largely avoided Mr. Trump’s fury.
They believe the president’s departure might allow Republicans to return to some of the themes that proved effective in down-ballot races last month, while also depriving Democrats of their most dependable boogeyman. In that rosy vision, lawmakers might step gingerly in public to avoid Mr. Trump’s wrath but otherwise go about their business, assuming Mr. Trump’s focus will never linger on one matter for long, while they elevate the perceived excesses of the left.
ImageVice President Mike Pence received the Pfizer vaccine on live television on Friday.
Vice President Mike Pence received the Pfizer vaccine on live television on Friday.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
“When Trump is no longer in office there’s going to be less focus on personality and ‘What did he tweet today, what did he say today?’” predicted Senator John Cornyn of Texas, adding, hopefully, that Democrats would soon struggle with internal divisions in a “Tea Party moment” akin to what Republicans faced a decade ago.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was even more succinct, arguing that the Democrats’ left wing would alienate moderate voters.
“Our problem is tone, their problem is policy,” Mr. Graham said of the two parties. “We’ve both got to overcome problems, but I like our chances better because we can act better and it’s harder for them to legislate differently.”
Frank Bruni: A less conventional take on politics, cultural milestones and more from Frank Bruni.
Yet if that is the view from the lofty perch of the Senate, there is little evidence at the ground level of Republican politics that Mr. Trump and his divisive persona are receding as forces in the party. Indeed, Republicans have recently struggled to articulate what their party stands for other than fealty to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump never espoused a set of plans for his second term, and for the last four years no one else has achieved the stature to detail an affirmative vision for the party. The coronavirus relief negotiations have also exposed serious ideological rifts among Republicans about the role of government in aiding suffering Americans.
Many of Mr. Trump’s signature governing achievements — cutting taxes for businesses and the wealthy, weakening the Affordable Care Act and rolling back environmental regulation — have been unpopular with many moderate voters.
The New York Times
Trump = Megalomaniac?