The old rules of accountability are out for the GOP’s would-be flip-flopper in chief | Opinion
A presidential election year always gets our attention with campaign commercials soaking up the airwaves. Households in swing states will get an even heavier dose given what will go down in history as one of the most consequential elections in American history.
Some polls now show Biden and Trump in a dead heat as summer approaches. Even if Biden pulls it off in November, this nation is hardly out of the woods. Too many Americans still deny the results of the 2020 election and refuse to acknowledge the treasonous assault on our nation’s capital as a crime of the highest constitutional order. If Trump loses, he has already telegraphed that he will not accept the results of the 2024 results and if he wins, he will pardon the January 6 insurrectionists.
There is yet another concern that has serious implications for how we elect people to office and hold them accountable for their beliefs and their actions. Keeping track of what Trump stands for requires daily attention to those chryons that run at the bottom of CNN’s news reports. No matter the issue, Trump is the master of the flip. What he believes one day may change the next if the polls order it so.
His switches back and forth on the abortion issue are the latest example of how quickly he puts his finger in the air to gauge the direction of the polls so he can adjust his position accordingly. Trump was pro-choice back in the day when it made no difference. That’s when he was firing folks on The Apprentice and no one cared about his views on abortion.
As early as 1999, he told NBC news he was “very pro-choice.” But as he collected pro-life MAGA support in his first run for the presidency, he flipped into pro-life mode and stayed so as president. He takes credit for killing Roe v. Wade by appointing Supreme Court justices who voted to ignore the historic precedent Roe established on the abortion issue. But hold on, women proved in the 2022 midterm elections and in polls then and now that the abortion issue was galvanizing their vote and removing politicians who did not respect their right to choose.
Bingo, that’s when Trump most recently flipped again and announced he thought abortion is a states’ rights issue and should be solved state by state. That was until he realized that Arizona’s 1864 law was too strict and he couldn’t afford to lose this swing state so he took a stand against the Arizona law just to improve his election chances.
His former pro-life vice-president, Mike Pence, called Trump’s latest move to hand off the abortion decision to the states a “slap in the face.” But what is utterly astounding is just how little it must mean to his supporters, especially evangelicals who came to his candidacy because of his pro-life stance. He seems to be able to flip back and forth with abandon and not a glove laid on him by the rank and file.
What we may be witnessing here is a reworking of one of the most important norms of representative government — how to hold public officials accountable so they follow through with the campaign pledges they make to get elected. It’s a guardrail against inconsistency and downright dishonesty in how public officials regard the commitments they make to their constituents.
Trump is adding a new chapter to his political playbook, one that comes right after the chapter on how to lie and make things up to get elected. The new chapter models a new kind of candidate who adjusts his positions on issues regularly to reflect where the voters are with no regard for consistency or integrity.
Today, Trump supporters lap up his diatribes at MAGA rallies and either ignore or don’t care about their candidate lying, obfuscating, or ignoring how he stood on an issue yesterday. It’s all about what it takes to get to the November finish as the victor.
It wasn’t always that way in American politics and having spent ten years in a state legislature and having survived three elections in the decade of the ‘80s, I can personally attest to just how dangerous it was to switch a vote on an issue. Getting tagged as a “flip-flopper”, especially on critical votes like abortion, guns or other lightening rod issues, could jeopardize your next election if your opponent knew how to employ opposition research and level the charge of flipping on a sensitive issue.
It was a surefire way of being labeled nothing but an opportunist who could not be trusted to hold on to a particular position longer than results from the latest poll. Notwithstanding that there were legitimate reasons why a public official might change his or her vote, such as new information coming to light that justified a different position on an issue, it was still dangerous to flip on an issue without facing some consequences in the media and at election time.
Now I look back on those days and it is laughable how accountability for public officials’ changing their positions is now governed by the new Trump playbook. He has modeled a behavior pattern that will surely be copied by other public officials. NBC News has tracked 141 distinct shifts on 23 major issues by Trump. CNN found that he shifted his position on abortion 15 times in 25 years. Whether it’s domestic issues or foreign policy, U.S. News and Report tracked Trump’s positions on issues in the first 100 days of his presidency and found his actions to differ from his policy pronouncements in the campaign.
If Republican candidates running for office in support of Trump are willing to deny the results of a presidential election or deny Trump’s crimes to avoid public recrimination for his affairs outside of marriage, then what’s to prevent them from using Trump’s tactics in their campaigns? Once campaigns are just contests among candidates to see who can be most effective in deceiving the electorate about their records, elections have lost their most basic purpose in reflecting the will of the people. Trump’s flips on abortion are not only the latest examples of his duplicity, but also a harbinger of things to come from those who choose to emulate his ways.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) also marches in lockstep with Trump now that he endorsed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as the new RNC co-chair. It has no qualms preventing voters from learning its positions on major issues. In the 2020 election, the RNC entirely abandoned the traditional party platform. I still remember attending Republican national conventions when days would be spent deciding what the platform would state on the major issues facing the American people. Not anymore. Now the Republican party and Trump gets by without telling the voters the official position of the party. Now it’s all about what Donald wants.
In retribution for his tyrannical ways, the Greek gods sentenced Sisyphus to the eternal task of rolling a heavy boulder uphill for all eternity. If Trump is elected, that will look like a cake walk for those trying to contain his autocratic impulses. If Biden wins, it will be time to renew our nation’s commitment not only to the U.S. Constitution but also to the norms of democracy that bring the Constitution to life in our communities, states, and nation.
And the next time someone at a summer gathering of family and friends shares why they support Trump, you might want to remind them of the very short shelf life of his commitments.
Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Readers Corner on Boise State Public Radio, and he writes a biweekly column for the Idaho Statesman. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.
