Republicans Have a Trump Law and Order Problem

The best litmus test during the first Republican debate was every candidate’s answer to one question: “Would you act the same as Mike Pence did on January 6th?” It revealed their true views on law and order and the rule of law. Whether they agreed that no one person is above the U.S. Constitution. The range of answers revealed that Republicans have a law and order problem. The answers can generally be categorized into two groups: (i) New Age Republicans, and (ii) Establishment Republicans. The former includes Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, with everyone else in the latter camp. New Age Republicans are in the mold of Trump. Populist in their rhetoric, these Republicans appear to be the future of the party. They enflame culture wars, seek to gut almost the entire federal government, and are isolationist extremists in their foreign policy. While Establishment Republicans may share some common ground, there was one critical distinction during the first Republican debate. Their shared unwillingness to put Donald Trump over the U.S. Constitution. They may not have all agreed on whether he should be prosecuted or pardoned, but they all agreed that Mike Pence did the right thing in not obstructing the election certification on January 6th. The problem for American democracy, however, is that Establishment Republicans are unlikely to win the Republican Primary. Donald Trump has a <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">huge lead in the polls</a>, despite his increasing legal woes, and <a href="https://polispandit.substack.com/p/why-ron-desantis-is-the-most-dangerous" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Ron DeSantis</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/23/vivek-ramaswamy-republican-candidate-profile-00112348" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Vivek Ramaswamy</a> are in second and third place, respectively. <a href="https://medium.com/the-political-prism/republicans-have-a-trump-law-and-order-problem-aae12eec69d0">Click Here</a>