This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 6 episode of “Deadline: White House.”
As Donald Trump readies for his second term, the president-elect’s hold on the Republican Party is undeniable. The party that presents itself as a fierce defender of the Constitution and the rule of law continues to back Trump’s election lies. A party that says it reveres our armed forces is now lining up behind the president-elect’s scandal-plagued pick for defense secretary, who does not have the qualifications to run the largest military in the world.
Maybe Trump simply pulled back the curtain and exposed the truth of what the Republican Party has always been about.
Watching this relationship between Trump and the Republican Party unfold over the last few years has triggered a question for me — a question that goes back to my time as chairman of the Republican National Committee and even before that, when I was involved in the party and watching its evolution.
That question is: What if the foundation of the Republican Party was bad from the beginning? What if the idea that this party ever stood for those things — the Constitution or the rule of law — was a fallacy?
If those beliefs fell so quickly under Trump, maybe it was political expediency that was propping them up all along. Maybe Trump simply pulled back the curtain and exposed the truth of what the Republican Party has always been about.
There’s some historic relevancy to that point. Just look at the party’s capitulation on civil rights when Republicans turned away from the fight for the liberty and freedom of African Americans and embraced a figure like Barry Goldwater. We also saw their capitulation on the rule of law when they allowed someone like former President Richard Nixon and later Trump to be the standard bearer of the party. Back then, some of us either didn’t accept the Republican Party for what it was or simply thought, at its core, it was something else. But now, this time around, I think we know better. Allison Detzel contributed.
Michael Steele
Michael Steele is a co-host of "The Weeknight," which airs Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC. He is a former lieutenant governor of Maryland and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
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