Imagine your party’s presumptive nominee for president is on trial for allegedly paying off a porn star he slept with just months after his wife gave birth to their son. The accusations alone are seedy enough. Add to that witnesses like former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, and convicted felon Michael Cohen, and you have a sordid affair that sheds an unflattering light on the candidate’s inner circle and private life.In ordinary times, such allegations would doom the presidential candidate and his party. Ordinarily, a party might consider replacing the candidate rather than enduring the embarrassing and damaging revelations that would emerge from such a scandal. Ordinarily, a party might distance itself from the candidate to avoid being associated with his depraved and possibly illegal behavior, especially if that candidate were also facing three other criminal trials for equally heinous offenses.
But these are not ordinary times. Today’s Republican Party abandoned ordinary years ago in favor of the extraordinary, unprecedented, and self-destructive. Donald Trump has simultaneously been the Republicans’ biggest boon, energizing and consolidating the base in ways never before seen, as well as the biggest drag on a party that lost the White House, House, and Senate in just four short years. And now he’s on trial for hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, a trial many believe he will lose.But believe it or not, Republicans are relieved that this trial is finally underway. Yes, I said relieved.
The last few months of the presidential election have put Republicans on the defensive over women’s reproductive rights. In the fallout from the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a seismic Supreme Court decision that Trump routinely takes credit for despite its unpopularity, Republicans have found themselves in an uncomfortable and politically perilous position. There were the early and embarrassing losses in red states like Ohio and Kansas, where voters rejected efforts to effectively ban abortions. Then came the heart-wrenching stories out of Indiana, where a 10-year-old rape victim had to travel out of state for an abortion, and Texas, where a woman whose life was at stake was still denied an abortion. Then, an Alabama Supreme Court ruling declared it illegal to dispose of IVF frozen embryos, leaving many infertility patients in limbo. This was followed by a ruling in Florida allowing a six-week abortion ban to take effect, and a ruling in Arizona upholding an 1864 law that banned virtually all abortions. And this week, the Supreme Court heard arguments to determine whether Idaho’s near-total abortion ban conflicts with federal law protecting women who need emergency care.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, the blows have come steadily, forcing Republicans to repeatedly defend or disavow the ramifications of their decision, all the while facing an increasingly alarmed and angry electorate. A majority of Americans believe that Republican efforts to limit abortion access go too far. In several battleground states, abortion is the most potent issue driving suburban women to the polls, and they believe Trump’s policies are too extreme. A majority of voters in Florida, Idaho, Texas, Ohio, and Arizona want abortion laws expanded, not made more restrictive.
Such sentiments do not bode well for Republicans, including Trump. And they know it. So the hush money trial, unseemly as it is, provides a welcome respite from the battering ram of unpopular abortion measures. As one Republican lawmaker told me, “Anything to take us off abortion, honestly. We can’t win the messaging on these bans, on no exceptions [for rape, incest, or life of the mother]. We just can’t.”
In other words, it’s easier to denounce Trump’s trials as political “witch hunts” than to defend their own policies. It’s an astonishing dilemma and an unenviable situation for Republicans, who are forced to choose between defending the president’s porn star payments or their unpopular policies. And Republicans will have to do both over the course of the next few months.
But it’s not as if they couldn’t see this coming. The man who put them in this position is the same man they continue to support against all odds and logic. Had they refused to allow Trump to completely take over the party, they could have nominated someone facing zero criminal indictments. They could have nominated someone who didn’t lead the party into the political wilderness with extreme, regressive, and unpopular legislation.
So just when you think the Trump trials are the worst thing to happen to the GOP’s November chances, remember this: compared to their policies, this is actually what they’d prefer to talk about.
