Debate week revealed a key difference between Democrats and Republicans

In 2022, after Donald Trump dined with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and antisemitic rapper Kanye West, Senator Thom Tillis condemned the sitdown — but didn’t denounce the former president.

“First, I honestly didn’t know who he was,” the North Carolina Republican told The Independent at the time. “If the reports are true and the president didn’t know who he was, whoever allowed them in the room should have been fired.”

Tillis, who has always had a tenuous relationship with Trump, deployed the same strategy after far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer appeared in the Republican nominee’s entourage this week.

“Laura Loomer is a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans,” he said on X/Twitter. “A DNC plant couldn't do a better job than she is doing to hurt President Trump's chances of winning re-election. Enough.”

Tillis’s words come after Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump critic-turned-surrogate, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish people running space lasers, both criticized Loomer for her “racist” remarks about Vice President Kamala Harris.

All three Republicans couched their criticism of Loomer in terms of wanting to help Trump and were quick to say she was doing a disservice to him.

Of course, as soon as Trump took to the microphone at his press conference at his golf club in the Los Angeles area, he refused to distance himself from her.

“Well I don’t know what they would say,” he said. “Laura’s been a supporter. Just like a lot of people are supporters. She speaks very positively of the campaign.”

Republicans know that Trump turned in a poor performace at the debate. While the election is still 53 days away and Trump could turn it around, his meandering, vitriolic and rambling delivery did not help him.

But this week showed a fundamental difference between Democrat and Republican leaders. While the primary goal of the Democratic Party is to get Democrats elected — and back a leader who will help them accomplish that — the GOP shows total devotion to Trump. Republicans have proven time and again that they are afraid to give him even constructive criticism, lest they be seen as insufficiently loyal.

Compare the GOP’s reaction this week to how the Democratic Party responded to President Joe Biden’s meltdown during their first debate. Almost immediately, Democrats, including those who like Biden personally, admitted that he had a bad night.

“I differentiate between worry and concern,” Representative James Clyburn told The Independent at the time. “Am I concerned? Yes. But I’m not worried.”

Over the next three weeks of painful deliberation, Democrats who feared that Biden would not only lose the election to Trump but would also compromise the party’s ability to win back to House or keep the Senate eventually came forward, calling on him to drop out. Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana, Democrats from states that voted for Trump twice who are up for re-election, said Biden needed to go.

Similarly, Brown and Tester have tried to keep their distance from Kamala Harris since she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket. The base has not revolted against either candidate, and they will likely continue to receive small donor money because Democrats know both men have to win.

Harris also recognizes she has to keep all factions of her party together. Her defense of fracking made sense once Joe Manchin, the Democratic-turned-Independent senator from West Virginia, told The Independent he was “tickled to death” that Harris talked about “a policy that’s producing energy that we need and investing in energy we want.”

By contrast, Republicans in districts that voted for Joe Biden, like Representatives Anthony D’Esposito of New York or Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, rarely create much of a contrast between themselves and Trump, even if it costs them their races.

As a result, Trump’s elevation of a conspiracy theorist will not cause Republicans to go into crisis mode. There will be no triaging of Trump.

Rather, they will contort themselves to say they are working in the service of the former president, even if it serves as a major drag on their own electoral prospects.