Criminal organizations have rites of initiation, membership, passage, and belonging.
For example, there are criminal organizations whose members cut off a finger as a way of asking for forgiveness and/or as an act of loyalty.
Other criminal organizations are rumored to have a ritual where a person pricks their finger, thus drawing blood, and then a prayer card is burned and an oath of secrecy and loyalty is taken.
Many criminal organizations require that its members dress a certain way, mark their bodies with tattoos, or speak in code. Violence is also an important type of ritualistic practice for criminal organizations.
Today's Republican Party is a de facto criminal organization. The crime boss is Donald Trump. Like in other criminal organizations, Trump rules through an inner circle of his closest advisors and lieutenants. Trump the boss also uses threats of violence and intimidation to keep control and to punish his enemies.
Unlike other criminal organizations, the Republican Party administers its loyalty oath in public.
During last week's Republican presidential debate there was one such moment when moderator Brett Baier asked the 8 participants the following question: "If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party's choice? Please raise your hand if you would."
Six of the eight prospective Republican presidential candidates said they would support Trump.
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Like other criminal organizations, there is to be no breaking of the ranks or criticizing the boss in public – or private.
Donald Trump is facing four criminal trials and potentially hundreds of years in prison. In Georgia, Trump and his co-defendants were charged under the RICO racketeering laws for engaging in a complex interstate crime operation by trying to rig the presidential vote in that state. The RICO statutes were created in the 1970s in order to combat the Mafia and other criminal organizations.
Donald Trump's crimes against democracy and the American people were committed in public. Moreover, Trump is unapologetic in his criminality and proud of his evil behavior – and promises to get revenge on he and his fascist MAGA movement's "enemies" when/if he takes back the White House in 2025. Like other professional criminals, Donald Trump has also shown himself to be a sociopath if not a full-on psychopath.
When the Republican candidates pledged loyalty to Trump last week during the debate (and on other occasions as well), they were also endorsing and supporting his crimes and promising to continue with them. As a practical matter, they are now his criminal co-conspirators.
The Trump-controlled Republican criminal organization is huge: it has tens of millions of members and supporters in the United States.
New public opinion polling shows the depth of their support and endorsement of Trump's criminal behavior.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll from early August shows that 35 percent of Republicans would still vote for Trump even if he was convicted of his crimes. The same poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Republicans believe that Trump is a "victim" who is being unfairly prosecuted and that he did actually commit any crimes on Jan. 6 and during the larger plot to end democracy.
A new Politico Magazine/Ipsos survey shows that despite overwhelming public evidence (including de facto admissions of guilt), more than 60 percent of Republicans believe that Donald Trump committed no crimes by attempting a coup.
The same survey also shows that 85 percent of Republicans believe that Donald Trump should not suffer any serious consequences if he is found guilty of trying to end American democracy on Jan. 6.
A recent New York Times/Sienna College poll shows even more support by Republican voters for Trump's criminality, where almost 80 percent of respondents believe that Trump is not guilty of any federal crimes and that the party should continue to support him.
A survey from the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that "nearly two-thirds of Republicans — 63% — now say they want the former president to run again":
That's up slightly from the 55% who said the same in April when Trump began facing a series of criminal charges. Seven in 10 Republicans now have a favorable opinion of Trump, an uptick from the 60% who said so two months ago.
These results are much more than the result of partisanship or polarization or how Republican and other right-wing voters exist in an echo chamber and closed episteme of disinformation and misinformation. Their support of Trump and belief that he is "innocent" despite all of the public and obvious evidence to the contrary is the result of decades of propaganda, socialization, and radicalization into a view of society where white conservatives and Republicans – and now neofascists and other authoritarians – believe that they are above and outside of the law.
By comparison, Democrats and other people who oppose the Republican Party and "conservative" movement are deemed to be guilty of crimes – both legal and moral — until proven otherwise.
Such a tribal, hierarchical, binary view of the world is a defining feature of fascism and authoritarianism and right-wing populism.
Another defining feature of fake right-wing populist and other authoritarian and fascist movements is that the followers want a leader, i.e. a strongman, who will break the law "to get things done". Donald Trump and his MAGA movement and Republican fascist Party fit that model.
In a 2022 conversation here at Salon, political scientist Shawn Rosenberg explained:
Donald Trump and other Republican leaders have weaponized the idea that the rule of law, democracy and democratic norms and institutions do not matter, because all that matters is the end result. Winning at any cost. You go for what you believe is right, and you get it in whatever way you can.
It's one thing to have that percolating in the underbelly of America's political culture. It's another thing to have a president of the United States legitimating it, as we saw with Donald Trump on Jan. 6 and beyond….
Trump's followers would not call him a tyrant. They would just say that he is a strong leader. That distinction is very important. I have done research which shows that almost 60% of Americans support a strong leader, and believe that you should be quiet and support him even if you disagree with what he is doing.
It's not that large parts of the American public are inherently evil or bad. It's just that when they look around at the world, they don't understand what's going on. They don't understand why it's so hard to solve some of these problems we're facing, why it's so hard to govern and why they're supposed to respect people who they believe are obviously wrong. There is also a great anxiety about diversity, in its many forms. They truly believe that if you want a country and society that functions properly, it should be homogeneous. Diversity doesn't work. Diversity is a disaster.
Right-wing populism offers simple answers and simple solutions and simple characterizations of what the world is like. Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and other such Republican leaders are offering that vision and those answers.
A new poll from the Washington Post/FiveThirtyEight provides more evidence of how a significant percentage of Republican voters support candidates who break the law if it helps them to win elections and get power.
Philip Bump explains:
On Wednesday, The Washington Post released data from a poll conducted by Ipsos in partnership with FiveThirtyEight. Included among the questions was one that teased out an aspect of the distinction drawn above: Would Republican primary voters rather have a party nominee who respected the rules and customs of elections … or one who would do whatever it takes to win?
About 13 percent chose the latter, 1 in 8. Nearly all the rest chose a nominee who respects those customs. But that means, given Trump's position in the polls, that a significant portion of the group preferring a nominee who respects election rules also support Trump's candidacy.
There are interesting patterns in the willingness of likely primary voters to endorse a candidate indifferent to the rules of running for office. Men say that they prefer a candidate who will do whatever it takes to win more than women.
So do extremely conservative Republicans, a quarter of whom endorse a candidate who will set rules and customs to the side.
As the news-consumption habits of respondents shift toward the fringe, their support for ignoring election rules climbs. More than a fifth of those who get news from Newsmax, One America News and other right-wing outlets prefer candidates indifferent to election rules. Among those who watch network news, the percentage is far lower.
These findings have potentially dire implications for the health of American democracy.
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As I explained in a previous essay here at Salon:
Neofascism and other forms of authoritarianism are exercises in corrupt power. The rule of law (and equality and fairness in its application) is one of the foundations of a healthy democracy. As the Republican Party and "conservative" movement have embraced fascism and other forms of illiberal politics they have, quite predictably, become increasingly criminal and corrupt.
Beyond the specific criminal and quasi-legal actions of the Republican Party and its leaders, such behavior has encouraged a societal climate where antisocial behavior by members of the MAGA movement and "red state" America – including right-wing political violence and vigilantism – is increasingly encouraged and rewarded.
In all, America's democracy crisis is much bigger than any one person or group of people. It is a cultural and societal problem where the legitimacy of democracy and its institutions, the country's democratic culture, and the rule of law, the common good and the general welfare are increasingly imperiled.
Fascism is at its heart a form of corrupt power, where crime is a central and defining attribute.
Donald Trump needs to be defeated at the polls and in court. If found guilty, he then needs to be sentenced to prison. The same is true of his confederates.
The Trump Republican Party crime family, like any other criminal organization, needs to be systematically taken apart from the top down. Once that happens, the larger neofascist movement will be without a leader. That will not last long as the movement is much bigger than any one person; American neofascism and the type of criminogenic politics it encouraged and was born of did not take come into being over the course of less than a decade, such elements where present long before the Age of Trump. But in that brief window of opportunity when Trump has been beaten, American's pro-democracy forces can begin to take some necessary first steps to heal the country and its institutions.
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