The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago is the best thing that ever happened to the Republican Party

The outraged members of the GOP yelling about how outraged they are actually want Trump out the way by 2024. They’ve just been handed a golden opportunity

Protesters took to the streets after news broke of the FBI raid (AP)

The GOP is united in hyperbolic, foam-flecked denunciation of FBI raid on former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Florida Senator Marco Rubio compared the raid to the persecution of political opponents under “third-world Marxist dictatorships.” Arizona Representative Paul Gosar fulminated: “We must destroy the FBI,” and was echoed by Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tweeted: “DEFUND THE FBI!” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy promised to investigate Attorney General Merrick Garland if Republicans retake the House.

It’s unclear what the FBI was searching for at Trump’s Florida residence, or which of many possible criminal activities they were investigating. This outpouring of rabid partisanship demonstrates the lawlessness and the persecution complex of the GOP.

But it also feels performative. Many of those who rushed to defend Trump are his rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination; others have denounced him in the past and have good reason to despise him. All of them have to know that Trump is a reckless narcissist and a threat to the party on multiple fronts. Indeed, lots of people in the GOP want Trump out of the way. They just don’t want their fingerprints on the knife.

The GOP has been concerned for some time that Trump might officially declare his presidential run before the midterms, overshadowing Congressional and gubernatorial candidates and complicating the race. And they haven’t exactly hidden that concern. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has paid $2 million in legal fees to Trump law firms since October 2021 to defend him against personal litigation and government investigation. The Committee told him in late July that if he announced his candidacy, they’d stop sending him money.

Now ostensibly, that decision was made in order to abide by the RNC’s fairness rules, which prevent the Committee from overtly supporting any primary candidate. But it has the obvious effect of giving the notoriously miserly Trump a strong incentive to stay out of the race.

Fox News has also started to distance itself from Trump. He used to be a constant presence on the network but hasn’t been interviewed there in months. Large GOP donors have moved funding and interest away from Trump to other candidates. Former Vice-President Mike Pence — whose life was threatened in the Trump-encouraged January 6 coup — has openly opposed Trump in a number of primary contests, endorsing alternates to Trump-endorsed candidates.

It’s not hard to figure out why the GOP might be nervous about Trump. Trump is obsessed with his 2020 loss to Biden; all he wants to talk about is how the election was stolen. Constant retrospective grievance can fire up parts of the GOP base. But most voters tend to be interested in the present and the future, not the past. They aren’t going to be voting on 2020 in 2022 or 2024.

Trump’s participation in Republican primaries has also been a disaster for the party. He is attracted to celebrity candidates, to candidates with little electoral experience, and to candidates who are willing to declare undying, unthinking loyalty to him personally. These candidates also do well with GOP primary voters. But they do very poorly in general elections.

Currently, Trump-endorsed candidates in Senate elections in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Ohio are wildly underperforming. All these states should be likely Republican wins in a midterm year with an unpopular Democratic president. Instead, Trump’s chosen candidates are behind in the polls in all four states. In some cases, like Pennsylvania, far behind.

Even putting aside those concerns, though, lots of GOP party actors would like Trump not to be a factor in 2024. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (who put out a statement condemning the Mar-a-Lago raid) has been openly maneuvering for the GOP presidential nomination. So have lots of others: Mike Pence, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and on and on.

Usually, after presidents lose elections, they step aside and let the next generation take a run at the gold. Trump, in contrast, won’t go away. He still wins close to 50 percent support from Republican voters in polls. Anyone with ambition in the party has to resent it.

Worse, Trump may be even more of a danger to his Republican colleagues if he loses than if he wins. He’s already demonstrated that he will refuse to concede if he is defeated. It’s easy to imagine him losing a close nomination fight to DeSantis and declaring that the election was rigged. He could run third-party, or insist that his voters write him in or stay home rather than support the Republican nominee.

That’s an apocalyptic scenario for the GOP. If Trump actively campaigns against the party in 2024, even an unpopular Biden could feasibly win just about every state. Down-ballot races would be decimated as well. Trump already helped lose the GOP the Senate in 2020 when he attacked Republicans in Georgia for not illegally invalidating the popular vote and handing him the election.

Republicans are in a double bind. If Trump leads the party, he’s likely to harm the GOP’s electoral chances and damage the careers of his rivals. But if Trump is ousted, he’ll go rogue, harm the GOP’s electoral chance and damage the careers of his rivals. Many in the party want to get rid of Trump, but they need to get rid of him in a way that doesn’t expose them to his wrath.

The Justice Department could be the GOP’s savior. If Trump broke the law, he might be disqualified from running for office. If he’s actually in prison, he’s going to have a lot of trouble campaigning effectively against anyone.

In the meantime though, no Republican wants to be seen as siding with the hated administration against the beloved former president. So they vie with each other to be outraged at the Justice Department probe they have to be hoping will save them. The GOP under Trump is the party of lies and hatred. No one should be surprised, given that, that Republicans lie to and hate each other.