Charlie Sykes on the GOP's Trump cult
"In the minds of MAGA world, he has never lost. There have been no defeats."
PN is a reader-supported publication made possible by paid subscribers. Appreciate our independent journalism? Then please sign up to support us.
President Biden is obviously in a quite precarious position right now, but that doesn’t change the fact that a majority of voters are anti-Trump. So while the situation might seem pretty favorable for MAGA at the moment, it’s still possible that come November Dear Leader winds up with the ignominy of losing two straight presidential elections.
A lot of pixels have been spilled, including in this newsletter, about what will happen if Trump wins later this year. But less attention has been paid to what comes next for the GOP if he loses.
Would another presidential loss and fourth straight disappointing election cycle for Republicans persuade them to finally move past MAGA? Hah! That ain’t happening. In fact, as Charlie Sykes told us, it’s not at all beyond the realm of possibility that Trump winds up being the GOP’s presidential nominee again in 2028.
“In many ways, Republicans are being held hostage by their own voters,” Sykes said. “The party is afraid of its own supporters. That Republican base wants the kind of Trumpist anger that he continues to stoke.”
Sykes was a fixture of Wisconsin conservative talk radio until he broke with the Republican Party when he refused to support Trump’s first bid for the presidency. He became a leader of the “Never Trump” movement and worked as editor and chief of The Bulwark, including hosting a podcast that quickly became a favorite of mine. He stepped away from The Bulwark earlier this year, but he’s still an MSNBC contributor and you can read his commentary on his Substack, To The Contrary.
So when we considered who to talk to about where the GOP will go if it ever moves past Trump, Sykes came to mind immediately. Public Notice contributor Thor Benson connected with him last month (before the debate) to talk through how the Republican Party sunk to its current low, the prospect of more political violence following November’s election, and what comes next for the GOP (spoiler alert: nothing good).
“My concern is that there’s an entire generation of young ‘conservative’ activists who are coming into politics now and think this is normal,” Sykes said. “They understand what the incentive structures are, and the incentive structures will continue to push them to the extremes. That’s troublesome. This is not something that’s going to go away in four or five years.”
A transcript of the conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
Thor Benson
Should Trump lose, what do you think would be the short term consequences? I imagine there could be more January 6-style violence.
Charlie Sykes
First of all, understand that in the eyes of his supporters Donald Trump cannot lose. Donald Trump will never concede that he’s lost. There’s zero chance that Trump will participate in the peaceful transfer of power. He didn’t last time. This is going to be ugly.
If Trump will not accept his defeat and will stoke a distrust in the results among his followers, then I think we’re going to have something that will make the aftermath of the 2020 election seem relatively mild in comparison.