A history of putting party over country

Opinion

In both Canada and the United States, politicians are expected to uphold their duty to their country and to serve as a representative of the people who have elected them to office. It is not to put one’s party over country and to blindly kowtow to the dictates of the party leader, especially when those dictates are foolish and detrimental to citizens.

At the moment, however, the majority of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are stubbornly standing by their leader, President Donald Trump and his inane tariff policies that many of them surely know are destructive and will ruin the lives of millions of Americans.

Like the three monkeys who “hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil,” Republicans (or at least most of them) blatantly ignore Trump’s bogus use of emergency executive powers; the fact that since he took office at the end of January, the U.S. stock market has lost more than US$9 trillion with no end in sight; and that he has almost singlehandedly devastated the post-Second World War global economic system.

Instead, you have Republican Speaker Mike Johnson declaring that the House of Representatives, in which the Republicans hold a slim majority, will not intervene to stop Trump’s tariffs, and the commerce secretary, billionaire Howard Lutnick, assuring Americans that Trump “knows what he’s doing.” In fact, it is clear that Trump, who claimed that the U.S. “has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered” because of trade deficits, has absolutely no idea how tariffs work and who ultimately pays for them.

Why then do most Republicans continue to follow Trump down this path to economic ruin? There are many factors: extreme partisanship, misguided loyalty, fear of the president’s wrath which could negatively impact their future electoral chances, and fear of alienating die-hard MAGA voters.

Party discipline and loyalty to the party leader have been hallmarks of the political process in both the U.S. and Canada, though to varying degrees. In Canada, it has often taken something fairly drastic for Liberals and Conservatives to turn on their leader, particularly if the party in question is in power. But it has happened.

In 2003, Liberals who were upset with then-prime minister Jean Chrétien about the sponsorship scandal — which involved distributing more than $100 million from the Prime Minister’s Office to Quebec supporters — and loyal to then-finance minister Paul Martin, who had leadership aspirations and resigned from Chrétien’s cabinet, forced Chrétien from office. More recently, many Liberals turned on former prime minister Justin Trudeau, whose popularity had dramatically declined, and left him no choice but to give up his job.

In the U.S., Democrats stood by Bill Clinton in 1998 when the Republican majority impeached him for allegedly obstructing justice and lying to a grand jury about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the other hand, Democrats, who are more divided today, united in opposition to Joe Biden continuing his 2024 presidential campaign and forced him to drop out of the race — making him the first presidential candidate from a major party to withdraw after having won in the primaries.

Republicans also stood by Trump during his two impeachments in 2019 and 2021, even though in the latter case many denounced his actions for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 riot and attack on the Capitol.

Nearly five decades earlier during the Watergate scandal, Republican party stalwarts pressured Richard Nixon to resign the presidency on Aug. 8, 1974. Yet, it was never certain that they would have done so.

During the previous 18 months, as congressional investigations and newspaper reports exposed the sordid details of the coverup of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel as well as the dirty tricks and misuse of campaign funds, Republicans remained staunchly loyal to Nixon. They dismissed Watergate as a partisan political attack, rather than an illegal action. It took until early August 1974, following the release of evidence (from the so-called “Smoking Gun” tape transcript) confirming Nixon’s culpability in the coverup.

The day before Nixon resigned, Republican Barry Goldwater, then a senator, and a delegation of fellow Republican senators convinced Nixon that if he did not resign he would be impeached, convicted and probably be sent to jail. While Nixon had no option but to comply, many Republicans were upset with Goldwater and the other senators’ actions and continued to defend Nixon to the bitter end.

There are signs that Trump’s tariff polices are beginning to upset Republicans who voted for him to lower the price of food and other goods, not increase them. Already, some Republican congressmen have been verbally attacked at town hall meetings in traditional red states and a Nebraska congressman, Don Bacon, intends to introduce a bill supporting bipartisan Senate legislation that, if passed (and that’s highly unlikely), would reclaim Congress’ authority over tariffs.

Time will tell if this discontentment will reach a point that a sufficient number of Republicans in the legislative branch will have the courage and fortitude to stop Trump before his tariff policies lead to the next Great Depression.

Now & Then is a column in which historian Allan Levine puts the events of today in a historical context.