Tammy Wynette’s 1968 classic Stand By Your Man should be the GOP theme song. It seems that nothing will dissuade either President Donald Trump’s base or Republican members of Congress from standing by their man.
Last week’s appearance by former Trump lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen at the House Oversight Committee was great theater, if you like a tragic farce. The Republican members, particularly Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, were simply embarrassing as they attacked Cohen and postured for the cameras. Not one Republican addressed, much less rebutted, the significant, albeit seldom new, allegations of Trump’s unethical and criminal behavior.
The “stand by your man” behavior seems inexplicable, as most of the GOP sycophants are at least marginally more ethical and competent than Trump. Many news reports indicate that GOP members of Congress sing a very different tune in private. So what is the motivation?
I think it is because Donald Trump is their “wall.”
The political debate over the border wall is analogous. Nearly all security and immigration experts say that the wall is a terrible idea. Keep in mind that the Republican Party controlled all three branches of government for two years and did not secure funding for the wall. They don’t really care about the wall. Trump doesn’t care about the wall. Some of his low-information supporters care about the wall because they believe propaganda about caravans, terrorists, gangs, drugs and all the other nonsense that Trump and Fox News peddles. But the political turmoil over the wall is not about the wall — at least not about the wall on the southern border.
The wall is metaphorical, not material, and its symbolism is underestimated. Trump’s candidacy and presidency represent a simmering resentment among many Americans over the “other.” The “other” can be quite specific — people of color, different sexual or gender identities, “elitist” college professors and immigrants.
But the “other” is also general — different cultural values, questioning of traditional rituals, so-called political correctness and social norms.
Everything “other,” including alternative approaches to education, religion, medical treatment and more, is highly suspect.
The “wall” is a conceptual representation of this fear, resentment or rejection of change — of all kinds. It is, to be sure, specifically about stopping the “other” from crossing the border, but it is also about reaffirming or re-establishing familiar and traditional values and institutions within our own borders.
This is why Republicans are so conflicted. Even if they know, and they do seem to know, that the physical wall is a stupid idea, they cannot reject it.
Because by siding with the progressives or Democrats about Trump’s border “wall” they fear being seen as complicit in violating the metaphorical “wall” that many Americans see as the preservation of all they hold dear.
This metaphorical “wall” is the boundary between saluting the flag and kneeling when the anthem is played. It is the fence that guards against gay partners joining the community of married couples. It is the invisible barrier to any atheist ever holding high office in America. It is the social barrier that makes Bud Light the national beverage and marijuana possession a crime. It is the barricade between women and control of their own reproductive choices.
The metaphorical “wall” is holding back what they believe are “barbarians at the gate,” a phrase used to describe a people or forces deployed to destroy social institutions, a culture or an empire.
Donald Trump is the Republican “wall.” They don’t believe in him any more than they believe in a thousand miles of concrete on the Mexican border. Virtually no congressional Republicans initially supported Trump’s candidacy. They were as surprised as the rest of us that he won. He may be an idiot, but he’s their idiot — a useful idiot as the expression goes. They know that abandoning Trump will be seen as allowing the inevitable changes of progressivism to overwhelm the floodgates.
But a tidal wave is coming, and neither Trump nor his enablers can do anything to stop it. The first winds of change hit the shore in the midterm elections. It would be satisfying to remove Trump from office by impeachment or indictment, but don’t look for Republicans to grow a spine.
We barbarians have to storm the gates in 2020.
Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo., and Sharon. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@gmail.com.