One widespread assumption of the last four years has held that most Republican members of Congress and other top elected officials privately disdain Donald Trump, view him as a serious political liability foisted on them by misguided voters, and would just as soon be rid of him forever as the leader and dominant personality of their party. This view unites liberals whose own hatred of Trump is so strong that they presume it simply must be widely shared (even by Mrs. Trump), anti-Trump conservatives who insist on maintaining a sharp distinction between Trump and the rest of the GOP, and journalists who have often seen Republican politicians roll their eyes at, or complain on background about, various Trump-related antics.
But the events of the past two weeks confirm that anti-Trump sentiment is by no means widespread among the national Republican leadership. Congressional Republicans have hardly used the opportunity of Trump's electoral defeat to put his presidency behind them. In fact, they have done little to dispel, and in some cases have openly promoted, Trump's own claims that the election was illegitimately decided—even though the acceptance of such beliefs among Republican voters makes it more likely that Trump retains his hold on the party for at least another four years, potentially culminating in a third consecutive presidential nomination in 2024.
The burdens that Trump hangs on his fellow partisans are obvious and well-chronicled. But he also provides some valuable benefits to other Republican politicians that aren't as widely appreciated. Here are three important ways in which Trump keeps many of them satisfied with, and even enthusiastic about, his continued leadership of the party:
1. Ideology. Everybody remembers how little support Trump received from Republican officials when he first ran for president in 2015 and 2016. But a fair amount of that opposition wasn't really based on a moral objection to Trump the man, as has been made clear in retrospect. Instead, it reflected Republican worries that Trump would be an unelectable nominee or that he couldn't be trusted to uphold conservative ideology. Both concerns were soon alleviated: Trump was indeed elected president, and he quickly proceeded to lead the most consistently conservative administration in nearly a century. Whereas even George W. Bush, once a national conservative hero, occasionally pushed his partisan allies in Congress to support ideologically impure legislation (the No Child Left Behind Act, Medicare Part D, comprehensive immigration reform), Trump has left the Republican right with few tough dilemmas and much to cheer. His policy agenda and personnel appointments (including to the federal judiciary) have been almost uniformly conservative, and—despite the "deal-making maverick" persona of his first campaign—he has never shown much interest in forcing his party into compromise with the Democratic opposition.
2. Protection. Beneath the Type-A bravado that many Republicans prefer to adopt in public lies a great deal of fear and vulnerability. The Obama years were a difficult time for Republican politicians, who found themselves the targets of constant criticism from conservative activists. For every veteran incumbent who was seriously challenged in a Republican primary election, many more suffered repeated attacks from angry constituents and conservative media figures who accused them of failing to prevent Obama's rise to power. But the Trump presidency has eased these conflicts. Trump's popularity among the Republican electorate is so profound that an endorsement or word of praise from him is usually enough to protect other Republicans from backlash among the grassroots. And to earn this precious seal of approval, Republicans don't need to take a series of tough votes or alienate important constituencies; they just need to stay publicly loyal to "Mr. Trump" and defend him from his enemies. For most Republican incumbents, who represent safely red states or districts where Trump is popular and Democratic challengers aren't a serious threat, that's a pretty good bargain.
3. Mobilization. Both the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential election produced voter turnout rates that hadn't been matched in a century or more. Democrats were able to harness deep antipathy to Trump to mobilize their supporters and win control of the House of Representatives in 2018 and the presidency in 2020. But Republicans flocked to the polls as well to defend Trump, even in a midterm election when he wasn't on the ballot. Though this conservative electoral engagement couldn't save Trump from defeat or keep the House in Republican hands, it did allow Republicans to pick up Senate seats in 2018 and potentially maintain control of the chamber for at least the first two years of Biden's presidency as well—while the unanticipated gains in House races this year make a return to power in 2022 very possible. Trump critics were hoping that the 2020 elections would deliver a national popular repudiation of the Republican Party as punishment for the perceived sins of its leader. Instead, Trump lost an unexpectedly close race for re-election while other Republican candidates benefited from the turnout surge among his devotees and a critical slice of down-ballot support from voters who opted for Biden at the top of the ticket. Never before in modern American history has a party emerged as unscathed from the defeat of its incumbent president.
Enthusiasm for Trump's leadership is, of course, hardly universal within the GOP; the existence of openly critical figures like Mitt Romney and John Kasich suggests the presence of additional anti-Trump Republicans who keep their opposition quiet for reasons of political self-interest. But we shouldn't assume that publicly-stated support for Trump is only motivated by a strategic calculation to pander to the Republican electorate. For many Republicans, Trump's flaws are accompanied by some very real assets, and they can envision a worse future than one where he continues to lead the Republican Party even while in exile.