Um, Since When Does the Right Wing Like Julian Assange?

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump began Wednesday with a tweet of support for Julian Assange, the man who has bedeviled American intelligence agencies with his WikiLeaks revelations throughout the Obama administration.

“Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’ – why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!” Trump tweeted in a series of posts that also sided with Assange in bashing the American media. This, after the WikiLeaks chief appeared in an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News to accuse the American left of trying to delegitimize the incoming Trump administration by insisting Russia was behind the hacking and leaking of Democratic emails.

In one sense, it is, to put it very mildly, unorthodox for the U.S. president-elect to openly take the word of a man hanging out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London over that of the American intelligence agencies.

But, in another, it makes a certain sense. Trump has a long history of favoring those when they favor him. There was that time, for example, following years of accusing U.S. President Barack Obama of ruining America, Trump said the two had “good chemistry” after a pleasant meeting — a position he then reversed after the Obama administration abstained from a U.N. Security Council vote on Israel.

Assange is personally vindicating Trump (and, in a way, Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, who believes Americans should listen to Assange). But he is not personally vindicating Sean Hannity who, in 2010, said Assange was “waging war” on the United States, and asked, “Why can’t Obama do something about WikiLeaks?” He also is not personally vindicating Sarah Palin, who campaigned as Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential running mate under the motto “country first” in 2008, and who apologized to Assange late Tuesday on Facebook (she had previously said Assange should be hunted down “like Osama bin Laden.”)

Why would Hannity and Palin — individuals who have branded themselves as strongly believing in a certain vision and version of America — start promoting and championing someone who has, according to them, threatened American security?

Because their beliefs are not what matters most to them. Their belonging is.

“American partisan identity formation is the most powerful force in the universe,” Max Fisher, a writer and editor at the New York Times offered on Twitter, linking to the Palin post.

Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America’s Political Reform Program, agreed. “Partisanship is more important than ideology,” he told FP. “If I’m on your team, or I say something that supports your team, than I’m your friend, and that’s how politics goes.”

But if that’s the case, why did newly re-elected House Speaker Paul Ryan say on Wednesday that Assange is a “sycophant for Russia,” telling radio host Hugh Hewitt, “He leaks, he steals data and compromises national security”?

In May 2016, Drutman predicted in Vox that the presidential elections “will reveal which Republicans have policy principles and which Republicans are primarily partisans.” He added: “Teamsmanship is more important than ideology.”

What we will watch for now, then, is how many members of Congress see Trump’s fondness for Assange (and for Putin’s Russia) as a challenge to their core views. It will be noteworthy to observe who will change their views to be part of Trump’s team, and how aggressively those who won’t, will fight.

But for most voters — and most members of Congress (of both parties) — Drutman believes teamsmanship trumps ideology. And so, for the most part, he said, “I think you’ll start to see them becoming good members of the team.”

Photo credit: Carl Court/Getty Images