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Fear and Loyalty: How Donald Trump Took Over the Republican Party

The president demands complete fealty, and as the impeachment hearings showed, he has largely attained it. To cross him is to risk losing a future in the Republican Party.

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. — By the summer of 2017, Dave Trott, a two-term Republican congressman, was worried enough about President Trump’s erratic behavior and his flailing attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act that he criticized the president in a closed-door meeting with fellow G.O.P. lawmakers.

The response was instantaneous — but had nothing to do with the substance of Mr. Trott’s concerns. “Dave, you need to know somebody has already told the White House what you said,” he recalled a colleague telling him. “Be ready for a barrage of tweets.”

Mr. Trott got the message: To defy Mr. Trump is to invite the president’s wrath, ostracism within the party and a premature end to a career in Republican politics. Mr. Trott decided not to seek re-election in his suburban Detroit district, concluding that running as a Trump skeptic was untenable, and joining a wave of Republican departures from Congress that has left those who remain more devoted to the president than ever.

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