At What Point Do Trump Defenders Go Silent?
Donald Trump Sticker I Photo Courtesy of Jon Tyson on Unsplash.
The opinions reflected in this OpEd are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of staff, faculty and students of The King's College.
In January of 2016, former President Donald Trump claimed he could “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I [he] wouldn’t lose voters.” Now, one insurrection later, Mr. Trump’s property in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, was sieged by the FBI in order to obtain government documents — many marked “Confidential,” “Secret,” and “Top Secret.”
Mr. Trump claims that he, as president, declassified the documents. However, when acquired from Mar-a-Lago’s storage room, the documents still had the bright red and yellow confidential identifiers. Mr. Trump knowingly possessed multiple private government documents that could have very well threatened national security. When will his supporters stop doubling down? What will it take for high-profile figures like Eric Metaxas, evangelical conservative radio host, and Michael J. Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, to let Mr. Trump’s actions speak for themselves?.
In The Eric Metaxas Show on Aug.11, 2022, Metaxas spoke with Naomi Wolf, American conservative feminist author, about the FBI “raid on Mar-a-Lago.” However, most of the podcast seemed to focus on Wolf’s research on vaccines and the “evil” and “satanic” nature of the Chinese Communist Party — stealthily avoiding the subject of Mr. Trump’s possession of government documents. In that case, why mention Mar-a-Lago at all? For clickbait?
On August 14, Metaxas quote-tweeted a video from Fox News saying, “We MUST end the FBI, which is no longer the FBI that served Americans and American purposes.” He described the FBI as “sickening” because of the “raid” on Mar-a-Lago. He continuously retweets resources citing Mr. Trump as “the MLK of the working class” and Christians.
Conservative evangelical figures like Eric Metaxas seemingly villainize anyone or anything that holds Mr. Trump accountable. In 2019, according to Gallup, 57 percent of people polled for approval ratings believed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was either good or excellent — hardly a consensus on the alleged treachery of the FBI.
In that way, supporters of Mr. Trump have always been combative of the liberal or left-leaning center’s concept of the mainstream. Trump-supporting conservatives believe that what is acting against Mr. Trump is always wrong or unjust — further polarizing what used to be fairly well-recognized political and nonpolitical institutions, like the FBI.
Mr. Trump claimed that the siege was “political persecution,” promoting his own victimization. However, his possession of government documents may have violated the Espionage Act which “prohibits obtaining information, recording pictures, or copying descriptions of any information relating to the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information may be used for the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” Information regarding the nuclear military capability of other nations were obtained from Mar-a-Lago, which could certainly qualify as a threat to U.S. national security.
On this release of information about the documents on Sept. 7, conservative public figures like Metaxas and Lindell chose to be silent — no tweets, no radio shows, no Facebook posts. Since then, though, Lindell has filed a claim against the FBI for seizing his phone.
While online support for Mr. Trump rages on as usual, the physical scene outside of Mar-a-Lago after the siege on Aug. 9 seemed desperately sparse. His cult-like supporters seem to have disappeared in all places but the internet.
Is it time for conservative figureheads to stop defending Mr. Trump and start combatting President Biden?
The answer is unclear. Supporters of Mr. Trump often seem to be grasping at a concept of reality that is distant and elusive. Truth is subjective — tailor-made for each individual based off of their own political social imagination.
This begs the question: will Trump supporters really stand by Trump through it all — even if he were to shoot somebody in the middle of 5th Avenue?
Mattie Townson is the Editor-in-Chief of the Empire State Tribune. She is interning with the Crown and Convergent imprints at Penguin Random House.