Trump the kingmaker — but at what cost to the GOP? | Clarence Page | Columns

If you can’t be a king, goes an old nugget of political wisdom, be a kingmaker. Former President Donald Trump is taking that advice to heart, shifting his post-presidency to endorsements of some and condemnations of others.

When he said, “We will be back in some form,” before his final Air Force One flight home, some of his fellow Republicans heard that as a promise while others had good reason to hear it as a threat.

For example, Trump has told his aides to prepare election challenges to Republican lawmakers who turned against him in his final presidential weeks, according to media reports. His hit list includes Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., who voted for Trump’s impeachment; GOP Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for refusing to try to challenge Trump’s loss of the state in November; and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who suggested Trump should resign.

Some fear — while Democrats hope — that the party’s national future can be seen in Arizona today.

Arizona’s GOP has swung so far to the right — and to the Trumpists — that it voted last Saturday night to censure prominent GOP establishment figures Gov. Doug Ducey, former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain, the widow of Arizona Sen. John McCain, for criticizing Trump.

Trump endorsed state party chairwoman Kelli Ward, who has embraced his false election conspiracy theories and won reelection despite opposition from the business community.

More than 9,000 Arizona Republicans have requested to change their party registration from Republican to independent, Democrat or Libertarian since Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to numbers compiled by the secretary of state’s office.

But, even without his favorite megaphone of Twitter and other social media platforms that have banned him, his durable support among GOP voters is deep enough to divide the party and intimidate any challengers.

Most intimidating, Trump also has been reported to be thinking about forming a third party and calling it the Patriot Party, although he more recently appears to be intimidated himself by the math that does not appear to be on his side. A Trump-led third party most likely would divide his supporters widely enough for Democrats to drive through to victory.

All of which leaves the GOP in a familiar position: trying to hold on to Trump supporters without allowing Trump to keep his chokehold on the party. That takes political courage of a sort that’s been hard to find in a party whose platform last year was one page saying essentially that the party wants whatever Trump wants.

But there also are signs that a Trump endorsement is no guarantee of victory in general elections and can even be a handicap. Even before the tragic riot of Trump supporters in the Capitol that led to five deaths, Trump’s endorsements failed to deliver two seats in Georgia’s special election, losses that cost the GOP its Senate majority.

That’s a dramatic example of how, as powerfully as Trump’s endorsement works in favor of Republicans, it can work just as powerfully against them among Democrats.

Nevertheless, the twice-impeached ex-president may well be able to whip up enough fear of primary challenges among nervous Republican senators to prevent the two-thirds majority that would be required for his conviction in the Senate.

Without that verdict, he remains free to run for office again or turn into whatever other future “form” he might have in mind, provided he is not constrained by ongoing federal investigations of his financial affairs, now that he decided against attempting a preemptive pardon.

For now he remains an aspiring kingmaker, a role that enables the publicity-loving ex-prez to stay in the spotlight as a relevant political force while his party’s leaders and voters decide whether his divisive gifts are worth the cost.

========

(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)