Recent happenings in American politics beg a curious question: Is Donald Trump’s time out of the White House actually increasing his power over the Republican Party?
Trump and his inner circle are working to carefully install loyal allies in key state and federal positions throughout the country, according to sources close to the 45th president.
Axios notes: “[Trump’s] apparatus touches everything from unseating governors, members of Congress, state legislators and secretaries of state, to formulating policy and influencing local school boards. One common thread with many of the candidates he’s backed so far: They all support his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.”
This is highlighted by Trump’s recent endorsement of former Republican Senator David Perdue for governor of Georgia. Perdue openly said he wouldn’t have signed the certification of the state’s 2020 election results if he had been governor at the time.
Perdue is running to primary sitting Republican Governor Brian Kemp. Also in Georgia, Trump has endorsed Representative Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who lodged the objection to Georgia’s electors, in a challenge against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who publicly resisted Trump’s efforts against election fraud in that state.
Trump-endorsed candidates for secretary of state are also running in Arizona and Michigan. Trump’s candidate for Arizona governor, Kari Lake, told OAN she wouldn’t have certified Biden as the winner if she’d been in office after the election. Meanwhile, in Texas, Trump waded into a state senate race by backing a challenger to Senator Kel Seliger after Seliger cast the only Republican vote against an audit of the election.
In Michigan, Trump has found a unique opportunity to build major influence in the legislature, endorsing five first-time candidates based on his assertions of a stolen election.
Trump also counts on the influence of his Save America PAC, the America First Policy Institute, America First Legal, the Center for Renewing America (another allied think tank), and America First Works (a pro-Trump advocacy group).
In addition, Trump has supported election reform in numerous states that crack down on the circumstances his supporters say contributed to election fraud in 2020. According to an Axios/Ipsos poll last month, 58 percent of Republicans believe there was enough fraud to change the outcome of the 2020 election.
“To the dismay of Democrats and Republican-sellouts, President Donald J. Trump continues to be the most dominant voice in American politics,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich told Axios in a statement.
In his bestselling book, The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene lays out Law 16: Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor. As Greene explains, for those in power, withdrawing oneself for a time and creating scarcity allows the public to see just how needed the leader is until they’re pleading for him to return.
In one example, Greene narrates the story of an eighth-century B.C. man, Deioces of Medea. He was not born into royalty, but lived in a time of chaos when the people sought order, yet were reluctant to name a king because of previous bad experiences with monarchs. Yet Deioces established a reputation as a wise problem-solver. Once he had the people dependent on his wisdom, he retired from public life. It didn’t take long for the people of Medea to beg him to come back — this time offering him the crown.
Similarly, while the lay observer would say 2020 was a crushing defeat for Trump, it may be that the “off season” is giving him the opportunity to come back stronger. Faced with a disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, illegal mandates, high gas and commodity prices, and other societal ills, many Americans have come to believe life was better under the Trump administration.
Moreover, the 45th president and his supporters are leveraging the base’s anger and resentment about the 2020 election to drastically reshape the Republican Party, endorsing a new generation of candidates at all levels of government who are loyal to the America First agenda and committed to preventing 2020 from happening again.
In short, the fallout of 2020 is allowing Trump to remake the GOP in his own image. If he manages to make a comeback to the presidency, he will be in a stronger position than he was at the beginning of 2020, as he would be working with a Congress, party leadership, and state legislatures stacked with devoted supporters.
