Of the many ways Donald Trump has degraded American politics, one of the more underrated shifts is how he's created permission for Republican politicians to act like childish brats. They used to feel obliged to fake maturity in public appearances, but now the typical Republican leader displays the emotional regulation of the drunkest person left at the bar at 3AM. The most recent example comes courtesy of Dan Kelly, the election denying anti-abortion fanatic who just received a walloping at the polls in Tuesday's Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
"I wish that in a circumstance like this, I would be able to concede to a worthy opponent," whined after he lost to Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz in the hotly contested race. He went on to claim Protasiewicz "demeaned the judiciary" by supposedly running a "deeply deceitful, dishonorable and despicable." He then called her "a serial liar."
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As usual with the MAGA crowd, Kelly's accusations should be read as confessions. The only person lying is Kelly, from his claims to "wish" he could concede (ha!) to his characterizations of the race. As anyone who has followed this election can attest, the real story is how honest Protasiewicz's campaign was. She avoided the usual weaselly rhetoric that pervades judicial campaigns to make a straightforward and appealing pitch to voters: She will protect both abortion rights and democracy. Her opponent, on the other hand, opposes both, even as he would dodge questions from reporters on this front.
Kelly wasn't just a GOP operative. He was heavily involved in Donald Trump's attempted coup.
As Scott Bauer of the Associated Press reports, the January 6 committee collected evidence that "Kelly was working as a 'special counsel' and had 'pretty extensive conservations'" to Trump's scheme to throw out Wisconsin's 2020 presidential election results and simply force the state to declare Trump the winner instead of President Joe Biden. It was this despicable behavior that did Kelly in with the voters, it turns out — his own despicable behavior.
Kelly's speech was so petulant that it managed to break through into mainstream press coverage in a week otherwise dominated by Trump's indictment in Manhattan on business fraud allegations related to his efforts to cheat in the 2016 election. Then again, the two stories bled into each other for reasons other than the self-pity of the two men involved. Both stories were also huge victories for the forces of democracy and rule of law against the MAGA efforts to destroy both.
MAGA is nothing if not dogged.
It's impossible to overstate how crucial the Wisconsin race was in the efforts to keep Trump from mounting a successful coup in 2024. If Kelly had won the race, Trump would be nearly certain to win any lawsuit demanding, no matter how facetious the grounds, that a Biden victory be thrown out and illegitimate Trump electors be appointed to anoint him in 2024 instead. Now Trump will lose this bid. Indeed, this was such a devastating blow to the insurrectionist cause that one of the architects of January 6, Ali Alexander, was griping on Twitter that this means Republicans may have to — gasp! — consider running candidates that could win a fair election.
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Trump can give all the bombastic speeches he wants and his sons can post AI-generated fantasies pretending their dad is popular, but in the real world, there are definite signs that the MAGA movement is feeling demoralized. Trump's escalating calls for "PROTEST" were also unsubtle calls for violence against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, or anyone involved in holding Trump accountable. In both cases, however, his followers mostly took a pass.
When the redhats didn't show up at the courthouse the first time Trump demanded it — on Tuesday, March 21— it could be written off as a "short notice" thing. After all, Trump only posted "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!" on the Saturday before, giving his followers only 3 short days to book travel from the red state hinterlands to the Big Apple.
Still, there should be no doubt that this week put MAGA on the back foot.
But then the arrest date was announced and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., agreed to lead the charge, giving MAGA plenty of time and notice about where to be and when. But still, barely any Trump supporters showed up. The few that did were drastically outnumbered by reporters and anti-Trump demonstrators. As Aymann Ismail of Slate reported, the journalists on the ground were so bereft of bona fide pro-Trump people to interview that they literally lined up to interview one of the few that did bother to show. When Greene finally appeared, the whole situation was so pathetic even she had to peace out after 10 sad minutes of being drowned out by hecklers. The only other Republican member of Congress to show their face was Rep. George Santos of New York, who is clearly just trying to squeeze the rubes for every penny he can get until his embarrassed constituents have a chance to throw him out of office.
Despite sending his team to feed every mainstream political reporter stories about how stoked Trump was to be arrested, once Tuesday actually came around, the bombastic ex-president just seemed anxious and tired. And that's after clearly going through the extensive hair and make-up prep he goes through for public appearances, no less.
There's so much to unpack in these images, one from inside the courtroom and one from Trump entering it to hear the charges. The people around Trump don't look at the cameras, busy as they are with the task at hand. But Trump himself can't look away from the lens. He glowers and glares, but one also senses that he's well aware that he looks pitiful. Trump tried to counter this feeble display later, giving a Mar-a-Lago speech backgrounded by glitter and flags. It didn't work. The overcompensation only compounded the pathos of the imagery from his arraignment. The networks realized Trump was downright boring and, about 20 minutes into the speech, turned the cameras off.
To be certain, MAGA is nothing if not dogged. It's an authoritarian movement of angry white reactionaries who believe this is a now-or-never moment for the grip on power they believe is their due. They believe themselves people with nothing left to lose. It's why they embrace personally dangerous strategies like vaccine refusal, just in the hope it will give them a political edge. Defenders of democracy should not start counting any chickens. This fight is far from over.
Still, there should be no doubt that this week put MAGA on the back foot, and not just because their leader finally got the smallest taste of the legal accountability he deserves. The Wisconsin election was a blow to Trumpism not just in a practical sense, but for the movement's morale. It was a sign that the pro-democracy majority has not grown complacent and won't be rolling over to let the fascists win. There's a dawning sense that it may actually be a whole lot harder to topple the world's oldest democracy than the Trumpists thought. They still haven't generated a Plan B if this whole Trump campaign fails to get people excited. Whether Trump goes to jail or not, this week may end up, when historians look back on these troubled times, as the beginning of the end for MAGA.
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