By Steve Brawner

© 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

For Arkansas’ all-Republican elected leadership, President Trump sometimes makes things … complicated.

Such was the case this week, when Trump dominated the news cycle – and I mean dominated – by tweeting that several Democratic congresswomen should “go back” to their home countries. He didn’t specify them by name, but he clearly was referring to all or some of a group that includes four outspoken progressives, all minorities. In a press conference Monday, he reiterated they are “free to leave if they want.”

The “go back to where you came from” tweets sparked immediate outrage from Democrats. Republican officeholders, meanwhile, met them with initial silence, which is how they prefer to respond to these kinds of tweets. These, however, were harder to ignore.

Among Arkansas’ elected officials, Rep. Steve Womack tweeted that the remarks were “not defensible” and then criticized the “anti-American, anti-Semitic and extreme policies espoused by the socialist wing of the Democratic majority.” Ironically, in the next sentence he called for changing the tone. Rep. Bruce Westerman criticized the “new socialist Democrats” but called the president’s remarks “unnecessarily demeaning.” Rep. French Hill said he was “tired of the war of outrageous and ill-informed comments – from our president and other elected officials.” As reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Sen. John Boozman said that “singling out people whose opinions differ from our own is bad for discourse and public civility.”

Sen. Tom Cotton, who has a working relationship with Trump, avoided criticizing him. At an event sponsored by the Axios news website, he said, “I think what he sees is a lot of extremism from the House Democrats. … The president is gonna tweet what he’s gonna tweet.” Rep. Rick Crawford had not weighed in as of Tuesday.

For Republican officeholders, the relationship with Trump is complicated. He was not the first choice of the party establishment during the last presidential campaign. In Arkansas, Boozman, Crawford, Hill and Westerman initially endorsed former Gov. Mike Huckabee. When Huckabee’s campaign fizzled, Crawford endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, as did Womack. Gov. Asa Hutchinson recorded a TV ad for Rubio and said of Trump on National Public Radio, “I do not see his discussion of issues as serious.” Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin along with numerous Republican state legislators also endorsed Rubio. Some endorsed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

In fact, no Republican senator anywhere endorsed Trump until Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions did on Feb. 28, 2016. Even as it became increasingly clear Trump would win the nomination, many were slow to jump on board, though eventually they came to grips with it. In his speech before the Republican National Convention, Cotton mentioned Trump’s name once. Hutchinson in his speech focused on criticizing Hillary Clinton while declaring, “Donald Trump is the right leader for our time.”

For much of the campaign, Republicans assumed Clinton would win, meaning they could default to the script under President Obama: Oppose, criticize and promise to fix everything when they returned to power. After the release of the 2005 recording of Trump saying he had groped women, Boozman uncharacteristically declared, “As a husband, father of three daughters, and grandfather of two precious little girls, if I ever heard anyone speak this way about them, they would be shopping for a new set of teeth.” He said he was “focused on saving the U.S. Senate.”

Then Trump surprised them by winning the election. And then he further surprised many by governing as a traditional conservative in the ways they cared most about: cutting taxes, increasing military spending, and appointing conservative judges. Traditional conservatives oppose trade barriers and haven’t necessarily been worried about immigration, so many of them have had to bend in those areas. But the tradeoff has been worth it for them to maintain power and accomplish some of their objectives. Plus, the economy is strong for now, and the president always gets credit for that politically.

Most importantly, Republican officeholders know Trump is very popular with the base, which largely agrees with him on immigration and trade. Those officeholders know anyone who actively opposes him will lose standing in the party and could lose the next election.

Politics involves choosing between imperfect alternatives – often only two of them. So most Republican officeholders have resigned themselves to the fact that Trump is gonna tweet what he’s gonna tweet, and sometimes they’ll have to issue a statement afterwards.