Even after the nationwide washout that took out the Republican Party on Tuesday, the damage to the GOP brand is not complete, reports the New Yorker. Now comes the Gerald Ford-style anchor that sank Republicans in the aftermath of another historic scandal: the Watergate Era.
After being confronted with his conspiracy to obstruct the investigation into the Watergate break-in by his own Republican elders, President Richard Nixon resigned, handing over his office to Vice-President Ford. Mere weeks later, Ford issued Proclamation 4311, pardoning Nixon for any crimes that he might have committed as President.
But Nixon’s undeserved absolution remained a stain on the party, which only looked more soiled for having absolved its criminal-in-chief, and Democratic President Carter claimed the White House despite an improving U.S. economy, the New Yorker reports.
Then, as now, Americans appear wary of a party too eager to bury the crimes of its villainous White House leader, and despite the Tuesday rout, New Yorker writer David Remnick argues the public will continue to hold the party in contempt for its too-eager forgiveness.
“The most consequential result of the midterms has been to break the fever of Trumpism and to diminish its threat to democratic institutions, to personal and civil liberties, and to decency itself,” reports Remnick. “Trump’s unique brand of lurid authoritarianism has finally lost appeal, and he has lost the plot. The election was also a vindication for those who had refused to submit. We are all too familiar by now with the many politicians, law partners, billionaires, C.E.O.s, university presidents, and others who cowered before Trump. Part of the reason we will survive the Trump era is that many more did their work honorably. Judges, civil-rights lawyers, academics, election officials, curators, artists, and countless ordinary citizens stood up. Their resistance to Trump’s bullying, corruption, and heartlessness has gained new political force.”
But Remnick pointed out that after the midterm trouncing, the White House issued a “PSA” on social media: “Trump is still your president.”
And that will be “useful information” to an American public long weary of the Trump administration’s open corruption and his party’s willingness to tolerate it.
“While he remains in office, his party is unlikely to rid itself of its cultlike obedience,” reports Remnick. “J. D. Vance, his would-be successor, believes that he can win in two years simply by acknowledging the folly of going to war with Iran, while still aping the cruelty and dogma of his mentor.”
According to Vance, “Donald Trump will ultimately decide who’s going to be the Republican nominee,” said Remnick, which will assure voters that the GOP is still clutched tighter within the hand of Trump’s villainy than anything else.
Still, without reasonable improvement to the economy and U.S. voters’ interests, Democrat inroads will only track so far, Remnick warned.
“The Watergate babies arrived in Washington in 1975 resolved to transform American politics; when Jimmy Carter, a moderate Democrat, won the Presidency, their prospects seemed to brighten even more. Yet, just six years after their great electoral triumph, Ronald Reagan, a right-wing ideologue, was elected President and the Republicans captured the Senate,” wrote Remnick. “The reformers of 1974 found themselves defending gains they had expected to build on. They had helped change Washington, but the country was changing in ways they struggled to understand.”
The next Congress, said Remnick, will succeed “not through an obsession with retribution and punishment but by delivering on the myriad hopes and demands of the voters who elected its members.”
“The Democrats of 2026 have won an extraordinary opportunity. What they make of it will determine what this election means,” Remnick concluded.