Donald Trump is a 34-times convicted felon who incited a violent attack on Congress to treasonously overturn the 2020 Presidential election.       

He repeatedly attacks Socialism—while blatantly supporting brutal Communist dictators Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

He is a notorious adulterer who has been twice divorced—and has repeatedly stated that he has more than fatherly feelings toward his daughter, Ivanka.

He claims to be a genius as a businessman—but has left a trail of bankruptcies and furious creditors in his wake.

So why did Republicans almost unanimously stand by him despite the wreckage he made of American domestic and foreign policy?

His supporters fell into two groups: Republican voters and Republican politicians. And each had their own reason for supporting him:

Republican voters: Hatred—they were seeing him humiliate and harm those they despised, and enjoying the experience. These targets included Blacks, Hispanics, liberals, “uppity” women, Muslims, the highly educated and the legitimate news media.

Republican National Convention – 2024

Republican politicians (at state and Federal levels): Fear—that he would turn his fanatical, hate-filled base on them, and deprive them of their privileged positions in Congress and/or governorships.

They also saw him as the guarantee of their power. And if he were impeached or voted out of office, he would lose his influence—and so would they.

There was a historical precedent for this.

While the Nazi Party ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, its influence over all aspects of Germans’ lives was suffocating.

“Censorship prevailed, education was undermined, family life was idealized, but children were encouraged to turn in disloyal parents,” reads the back cover of Richard Grunberger’s classic 1971 book, The 12-Year Reich. 

“‘Volk’ festivals, party rallies, awards, uniforms, pageantry all played a part in the massive effort to shape the mind of a nation.” 

And yet, after the Reich surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on May 8, 1945:

• Countless Germans claimed to have hidden Jews in their attics—despite the fact that six million Jews died horrifically before the Reich fell.
• American and British soldiers couldn’t find any German veterans willing to admit they had ever fought against Western, democratic nations.
• All the once-proud legionaries of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS swore they had been fighting “the real enemy”—the Russians—on the Eastern front.

In short: Adolf Hitler had lost the war he started—making him a loser nobody wanted to be identified with.

In the decades since, the “loser” tag has continued to stick with those who once served the Third Reich. Mel Brooks has repeatedly turned German soldiers—once the pride of the battlefield—into idiotic comic foils.

Even the fearsome Gestapo was spoofed for laughs on the long-running TV comedy series, “Hogan’s Heroes.”

“Hogan’s Heroes”

“Americans love a winner,” George C. Scott as George S. Patton says at the outset of the classic 1970 movie. “And will not tolerate a loser.” 

Trump has been convicted of multiple crimes, but Republicans continued to slavishly support him. If they hadn’t, he would have been:

• A figure held up to ridicule and condemnation.
• Like Adolf Hitler.
• Like Richard Nixon.

And his supporters at state and Federal levels would have been branded as losers along with him.

Republicans vividly remembered what happened after Richard Nixon was forced to resign on August 9, 1974: Democrats, riding a wave of reform fever, swept Republicans out of the House and Senate—and Jimmy Carter into the White House.

If Republicans were conflicted—whether to continue supporting Trump or desert him—the reason was the same: How can I hold onto my power and all the privileges that go with it?  

Ultimately, that question was answered for them during the November 3 midterm elections by millions of angry voters: Democrats won clear majorities in both the House and Senate.

As a rule, the President’s party fares poorly during midterm elections. Fearing that his base might not care enough to show up at the polls, Trump had repeatedly urged Republican voters to “vote like I’m on the ballot.” 

Donald Trump

Democratic voters did vote as if he were on the ballot. Because he was—if only through the policies he imposed. They had a litany of reasons to see his power weakened:

• Corruption;
• ICE raids;
• The Iran war;
• His rampant egotism;
• Desecration of the John F. Kennedy center for the Performing Arts;
• His fixation on vanity projects while countless Americans starved;
• Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics;
• Attacking longtime allies like Canada while cozying up to longtime enemies like Russia and China.

Republicans who refused to vote or voted Democratic had a much simpler reason: They were fed up paying high prices for gas and groceries—and they rightly associated these with Trump’s Iran war and tariffs aimed at 60 trading partners.

They had cheered or stood by silently while Trump attacked one cherished American institution after another. But paying inflated prices for basic necessities was where they drew the line.

After the electoral drubbing Republicans suffered in the November midterms, future Right-wing leaders are likely to remember the priorities of their electorate: “Constitution be damned—my wallet, first and always.”

Suppressing the rights of others has long been a priority of Republicans. Among their targets: Blacks, Hispanics, “uppity” women, liberals, atheists, non-Christians, Asians, Muslims, the legitimate news media.      

Their latest intended victim: Transgenders.

Republicans have accused transgender men of posing a menace to women. But according to a new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law:  

• Transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault and aggravated or simple assault.
• Transgender women and men had higher rates of violent victimization (86.1 and 107.5 per 1,000 people, respectively) than cisgender women and men (23.7 and 19.8 per 1,000 people, respectively).

In late 2025, the Republican U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation aimed at criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors. 

And then there’s abortion. To quote Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Georgia supporter Lisa Adams: “That’s a big one.”

Republicans sought to re-criminalize abortion since the Supreme Court legalized it in 1973. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion and returned regulatory authority to individual states. 

This has led Right-wing states to prosecute women who obtain abortions even in cases of rape, incest or when their lives are endangered by pregnancy. Thirteen states have a total abortion ban; 28 states have abortion bans based on gestational duration.

Thus, so long as Greene supported attacking those groups her constituents hated—such as transgenders and abortion-seekers—her constituents loved her.

“The biggest thing that Marjorie contributed wasn’t even in legislation,” said Gavin Swafford, who worked on Greene’s initial campaign. He didn’t care that she had failed to cut bipartisan deals and bring federal money back home.

“She was unwavering in ‘America First,'” said Swafford, referring to cultural issues she championed.

Nor did her supporters care that her lies about COVID-19 had led untold numbers of men and women to forego wearing masks and social distancing in 2020 when no vaccines were available. Or to forego getting vaccinated once vaccines became available in 2021.

Those lies—along with those told by President Donald Trump—cost the lives of 400,000 Americans during 2020, his last year in office.

COVID-19

Like Greene, her base is equally motivated by hatred—of the same persons and organizations whom Trump regularly attacks. During the 2016 campaign, countless such voters told interviewers: “He says what I’ve long been thinking!” 

There is a historical precedent for this behavior—in the Nazi Germany of Adolf Hitler.

In his 1973 bestseller, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, historian Robert Payne bluntly held the German people accountable for the crimes their Fuhrer committed in their name: 

“Ultimately, the responsibility for the rise of Hitler lies with the German people, who allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….

“He promised them what they had already promised themselves—power, dominion, Lebenraum—and they followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content.

“They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims….If he answered their suppressed desires, it was not because he shared them, but because he could make use of them. He despised the German people, for they were merely the instruments of his will.

“Many Germans voted against Hitler, but few fought actively against him. And of those even fewer fought with clean weapons and clear consciences. 

“The colonels and generals who so ineffectively attempted to assassinate him on July 20, 1944, were already corrupted because they had fought in his wars and were accessories to his crimes.

“They worked to save their own skins and their traditional way of life. And when they spoke of ‘saving Germany’s honor’ they were speaking about something that was beyond saving.”

During his first term as President, Trump viciously attacked many of the institutions Americans had cherished for more than 200 years. And during the first two years of his second term he accelerated those attacks.

Among his targets: 

• Pardoning about 1,500 of his followers who violently tried to overturn the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election in the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. More than 250 of those pardoned had been convicted of assaulting police.
• Firing the non-partisan board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—and having his toadies illegally rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
• Threatening to demolish the Center when a judge ordered him to remove his name from it.
• Flooding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who terrorized (and in two cases murdered) both American citizens and illegal aliens. 

Donald Trump

• Demolishing the East Wing of the White House to create a 90,000 square foot ballroom
• Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
• Supporting Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in his efforts to conquer independent Ukraine. 
• Demanding that Canada become the 51st state, aggressively raising tariffs on Canadian goods and even threatening military invasion. 

Why did Republicans almost unanimously stand by Donald Trump despite the wreckage he made of American foreign and domestic policy? 

Fear—that they would lose their privileged positions if they didn’t.