This conundrum is giving rise to a variety of responses, all of which cope with that vast and complicated underlying state of affairs in a different way. Here are five leading ones:
Call Trump a “loser” without implicating their own party.
Some Republicans willingly blame Trump for the outcome of the midterm elections, but without acknowledging that their own party’s willing and even eager embrace of the pathologies of Trumpism was also a major culprit.
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), for instance, declared that the 2024 nominee must not be “the loser Donald Trump has proven himself to be.” Brooks played a big role in the former president’s effort to overturn his 2020 loss, along with other House Republicans loyal to Trump. What Brooks can’t say is that many prominent GOP candidates lost this year in no small part because they actively sought to keep that insurrectionist spirit alive.
Trump’s mystique with his voters has long been rooted in their feeling that he’s winning on their behalf. Casting Trump as a “loser” is about breaking that mystique, by making his voters associate their losing feeling about this year with Trump. But the trick is to do this without admitting to why he proved to be a “loser” for their party, or the party’s own role in making that happen.
Resolutely keep up the election denial
Prominent election denier Kari Lake has responded to her failed bid for Arizona governor by releasing a new video insisting her loss proves widespread disenfranchisement. Lake is also gearing up with a legal challenge to the results based on bogus claims about voter confusion.
This is not just sore-loser stuff. It’s a big bet on the inclinations of millions of MAGA voters going forward. This push — which has been joined by former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon — is meant to corral that losing feeling and channel it in a different direction entirely.
The wager is that MAGA’s animating principle is a rejection of the very idea that our system can render legitimate outcomes in which they are the losers. The fact that most losing election deniers have conceded shows a welcome recognition that this notion is spent. Lake and Bannon are dead-enders: They want to keep it going and push it to its full potential — to what end remains to be seen.
Amplify the Trump hagiography
Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), a House GOP leader, responded to the midterm results by endorsing his presidential run while calling on the party to “unite around the most popular Republican in America.”
Stefanik probably sees this as a bid for support from the MAGA caucus inside the House GOP. But this also represents a different kind of bet on the future of the MAGA movement: That millions of Trump voters are not at all prepared to see Trump as a “loser” or blame the midterm elections debacle on him, and those who position themselves as his loyalists will reap their support.
Blame Trump but in a tone of forgiveness
Former vice president Mike Pence is trying a novel approach to get GOP voters to move on from Trump without fully repudiating the president he served under: He allows that Trump’s conduct related to Jan. 6 was an extraordinary dereliction of duty, while piously suggesting that Trump has atoned for it.
Pence is in a unique bind: Everyone saw Trump pressure Pence to steal the 2020 election and then, when Pence refused, incite the mob to threaten his life. So Pence can’t minimize what happened, but he also wants to reach out to Trump voters.
And so, in a telling moment at a CNN town hall Wednesday night, Pence allowed that he still blames Trump for Jan. 6, but also declared that in the aftermath, Trump “made the right statements to the country” and “committed to a peaceful transfer of power.” Trump did the right thing in the end!
That’s an epic distortion. Ever since, Trump has maintained that Jan. 6 was a just cause, and that the transfer of power was illegitimate. But Pence is offering Trump voters a soft exit from Trumpism: We can admit to what really happened at the end of the Trump years, and move on from it, but this needn’t be seen as a rebuke of him.
Pretend Trump has pivoted to being an elder statesman
Amanda Marcotte has compiled multiple examples of Republicans claiming Trump’s announcement speech showed a newly mature tone, one reflecting his desire to move on from 2020.
There is very little chance these Republicans believe this claim. It appears to be an effort to buy time: It’s a way to avoid taking a stand on the role of Trump, MAGA and election denial in the GOP’s terrible midterm showing and whether that means the time has come to marginalize Trump once and for all.
Indeed, all of this is about buying time, because no one really knows how durable Trump’s hold on his voters will prove. Some Republicans are betting it will be lasting, and hope to capture the benefits. Others want to loosen his grip but aren’t sure how to do so without damaging themselves.
But all their approaches appear to have one thing in common.
Trump attempted to overturn U.S. democracy. He incited mob violence toward that end. He is entirely unrepentant about it and would do it all again. The GOP embraced this MAGA extremism throughout Trump’s presidency and continued to do so even after his coup attempt. It helped result in a historically bad midterm performance. Continued fealty to Trump promises electoral disasters to come.
In one way or another, what must be avoided above all is telling Trump voters these blunt truths.
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