The silence has been deafening.
For the entirety of his presidency (until roughly its final 10 days), Donald Trump demanded our attention, and we gave it to him. He used his greatest skill — technologically amplified demagoguery — to assert and maintain control over his party. What began as an imperfectly consolidated hostile takeover during the 2016 GOP primaries became a one-man show by 2020.
Yes, there were dissenters over the years, but one-by-one they either fell in line or were driven from their elected offices. While Trump remained in the White House, only Utah Sen. Mitt Romney — a wealthy septuagenarian former presidential nominee, four years away from re-election, and with sizable store of good will in his home state — maintained a consistently critical stance toward the president.
