Franklin Pierce, another former president and a friend of Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, was seen as a Southern sympathizer during the war. At one point, he was accused by Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state of being affiliated with a seditious organization, a charge Pierce heatedly denied. In another episode decades earlier, Aaron Burr, a former vice president, was tried for treason for allegedly seeking to lure Western states to leave the nation but acquitted by a jury.
For all that, Mr. Trump stands out. The trial of Mr. Rhodes and his compatriots raises questions that have not been seriously asked about a sitting president in anyone’s lifetime, namely whether he had gone beyond inspiring violent extremists in a way that violated the law.
Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s program on extremism, said this week’s verdicts reinforced that Mr. Trump and his team had learned how to tap into the anger, racism and antidemocratic views of such forces.
“The convictions of Rhodes and his co-conspirators provide evidence of what has long been recognized — that the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and the thousands who traveled to the Capitol did so in response to the numerous calls to action by Trump and others in the lead-up to Jan. 6,” he said. “These were the foot soldiers of the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, who were determined to use force to prevent the certification of the electoral vote.”
Mr. Trump’s expanding embrace of extremism has left Republicans once again struggling to figure out how to distance themselves from him. While he has said he did not know who Mr. Fuentes was before he was brought to dinner at Mar-a-Lago by Ye, Mr. Trump knew that Ye was under fire for antisemitic statements and invited him anyway.
The Republican Jewish Coalition, which has been supportive of Mr. Trump, issued a statement on Thursday denouncing Ye and Mr. Fuentes for their latest comments and implicitly rebuking Mr. Trump. “Conservatives who have mistakenly indulged Kanye West must make it clear that he is a pariah,” the statement said. “Enough is enough.” But it did not mention Mr. Trump by name.
Mr. Trump showed no signs of backing down. Whatever heat he takes from the establishment for his associations, he presumably reasons, it is surpassed by the support he enjoys from the fervent portions of his base. Whether he shares all of their views or simply indulges them, his test has always been whether someone supports him or not. And as many of his own former advisers abandon him, he is left with the most hard-core allies whispering in his ear.
