During the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, former President Donald Trump bellowed: “I am your warrior, I am your justice … I am your retribution,” to an uber MAGA crowd. It was as if Trump knew then that his legal woes were catching up to him and he was asking the audience to fight for me, defend me and avenge me.
Since then, Trump has been found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to an adult film actor, in an effort to conceal his conduct from voters ahead of the election. And his supporters have gone into overdrive.
We’re witnessing the rise of a cottage industry of Trump vengeance of sorts.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican, was out front and center with an absurd threat she posted on X: “NO Federal funding to New York!” and “New York needs to drop their conviction of Pres Trump!” Needless to say, this will never happen. Perhaps Greene was trying to make up with Trump after losing her fight to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, but her calls for retribution after Trump’s guilty verdict mark a bizarre, and prominent, trend among ardent pro-Trump lawmakers who are positioning his guilty verdict in a court of law as a vendetta of sorts, which deserves payback.
As a result, we’re witnessing the rise of a cottage industry of Trump vengeance of sorts. We have those like former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who is preparing to (finally) serve a four-month jail sentence for two counts of contempt of Congress. In a recent interview with Axios, Bannon, when speaking of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who successfully prosecuted Trump, said, “Of course [Bragg] should be — and will be — jailed.” The article also highlights several ways Trump backers believe that Trump could use the DOJ to seek retribution against Bragg, should Trump be elected president again.
The legal soundness of this all is shaky at best. And yet, when it comes to defending Trump, congressional Republicans are willing to undermine the pillars of democracy, something we’ve seen firsthand.
After the Trump verdict, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement: “It is fundamental to our American system of justice that the government prosecutes cases because of alleged criminal conduct regardless of who the defendant happens to be. In this case the opposite has happened.”
It appears that Collins, who was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump on his second impeachment, is trying to find a way to escape the wrath of Trump should he be elected, but it’s likely she will receive no quarter from him. Which is why her actions are so troubling; even though we have proof of where she stands on Trump, she is hedging her bets on our judicial system rather than standing up to him.
Then there are people I’ve encountered in my own circle, and in my own interactions, who I am convinced know better than to support Trump, but who effortlessly discount his words by suggesting that he is “just saying that, he doesn’t really mean any of it.” Yet some of these same Republicans were more than a little nervous following the Trump conviction — like many of us, they wondered, will there be violence, harkening back to Jan. 6? As I have written before, Trump is transparent and transactional. When meeting with oil executives recently, Trump suggested that if they raise $1 billion in contributions to his campaign, he would overturn many of Biden’s environmental rules and regulations. It is not a stretch to think that Trump, who seems to enjoy flexing his muscles and showing off, would reward those executives. We can’t forget that there are two reason Donald Trump is running for president. The first, and foremost, is to avoid prosecution and stay out of jail. The second is to get payback against anyone who has ever done anything against him. Trump is not just saying these things to excite his base and raise money — he believes in retribution. And this retribution has become central to his base. Greene’s calls for payback, and other statements like her lengthy post about Trump being “vilified,” make but one clear example of many showing how an enthusiastic cohort of supporters are doing so much of the fighting for him. Coretta Scott King’s words have never been more true: “Revenge and retaliation always perpetuate the cycle of anger, fear and violence.” This is how Trump will act if elected again, and it is what he is spewing in order to get there.
Susan Del Percio is a Republican strategist and a political analyst for MS NOW. 
