For almost a decade, we’ve been watching the Republican Party die over and over. And not in a Deadpool way. It doesn’t rise from each death and return to normal. It just hobbles along, with less life, less relevance, and even less political force.
This all began with the party’s acquiescence to Donald Trump in 2016 and his hostile takeover of the Grand Old Party. His nomination marked the start of its death spiral. The deal that was sealed when the party leaders stuck with this misogynistic, racist, deceitful, and malevolent narcissist following the emergence of the grab-’em-by-the-pussy video. Another death.
Give us tax cuts, right-wing judges and justices, and the standard conservative fare, and we’ll abide your indecency and demagoguery. But with this arrangement affording Trump free rein (and free reign?), he was able to transform the Republican base into the MAGA cult for whom he became Dear Leader. By the time the Covid pandemic hit in the final year of his first term, Republican couldn’t criticize him without imperiling their own careers. He had turned the GOP into The Trump Show;Everyone else was a minor character imprisoned in the Trump cosmos. None of the old Republican principle mattered. It wasn’t party over nation; it was person over party. Another death.
The 2020 election, for a moment, seemed an opportunity for the GOP to break away from Trump. But with the cult leader falsely claiming victory and pushing the baseless lie that the election was stolen from him, the party poohbahs gave him plenty of room to peddle his dangerous BS, wrongly believing that he would eventually come around and then, perhaps, go away. Fearful of his wrath—and that of MAGA primary voters—they refused to defend democracy. Another death.
Then came January 6 and Trump’s incitement of terrorist violence at the US Capitol. For a brief moment, GOP leaders (not that you could call them leaders anymore), including Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, decried Trump for causing the insurrectionist riot. Finally, they seemed to think, he had gone too far and deserved to be cast off by the party. There was even a nanosecond or two when it appeared possible that McConnell would vote to convict Trump during his second impeachment. But he and the others lost the little nerve they had left. They fretted that the MAGA base would rebel against the party and refuse to support its candidates with money and votes, should it side with the Constitution and dump Trump. Except for a few brave souls—remember Liz Cheney?—they rallied to Trump. Another death.
Subsequently, Republicans stood by their strongman in clownish makeup when he stole top-secret documents, when his business was found guilty of fraud, when he was found liable for a sexual assault, when he was found guilty of falsifying business records to hide his secret payments to a porn star with whom he had allegedly trysted, and when he was indicted for having tried to subvert the constitutional order and retain power. One death after another. With each one, the party grew weaker and Trump became stronger. A few misguided Republicans foolishly believed they could politely challenge him in the 2024 primaries. They learned that in a cult no challenging of the godhead is allowed. All that mattered in the GOP was Trump Uber Alles.
Which, with a few skips and jumps, brings us to these past few weeks. And more deaths.
The Republican Party has enthusiastically accepted the most dangerous and unqualified set of top-level government officials in the modern US history, and it has done nothing as Trump and his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk violate rules, norms, and laws to wage a cruel and vicious war on the federal government that has caused profound harm to millions of people overseas and citizens at home.
I know what some of you are thinking: duh! By now, it’s no surprise that the lapdogs and lickspittles of the GOP would utter no peeps of protest and that many would wholeheartedly cheer on the viciousness and inanity of this ideological war to boost oligarchy and impose autocracy. But we need not let the soft bigotry of low expectations prevent us from denouncing the GOP cowards and extremists at this perilous moment. Trump and Musk could not get away with their vile and destructive moves without the assent of their party. The GOP has turned Congress—which the founders created as a co-equal entity designed to check and counterbalance presidential power—into a body of brownnosers and kowtowers who dare not express independent judgment that inconveniences Trump and Musk.
There is no way that a large majority of Senate Republicans believe that talking head Pete Hegseth should run the Pentagon, that anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theory-monger Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should lead the Department of Health and Human Services, that Putin apologist Tulsi Gabbard should oversee our intelligence establishment, or that MAGA provocateur and grifter Kash Patel should be FBI director. None of them possess the experience necessary for the post they have been handed by Trump. Each one has a long history of actions and comments that disqualify them for the job. And during their confirmation hearings, each misled or lied. Kennedy falsely insisted he was not opposed to vaccines. Patel lied about his advocacy for January 6 rioters. Hegseth claimed all the criticisms of his character had been anonymous smears, when the most potent one had come from his own mother. Gabbard was disingenuous about her previous support for Vladimir Putin and recently deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Many, if not, most Republican senators realize this. Several Senate Democrats tell me that there is one explanation for the complete cave-in: fear. These Republicans are scared of political retribution should they dare question Trump on his nominees or on any other front. And while that fear has existed for years, it is now sharper with the threat of Musk pouring tens of millions of dollars behind a GOP primary challenger. I know some observers have speculated that elected Republicans are also intimidated by the threat of violence from Trump extremists. (They all know that after he voted to convict Trump during the J6 impeachment trial, then-Sen. Mitt Romney had to pay $5,000 a day to protect his family.) And Trump’s pardon of the J6 brownshirts does suggest future political violence is a real possibility. But my hunch is that careerism, a lust for influence, and general cowardice explain their absolute submission.
It is a sad state of affairs when McConnell—who has done so much to enable Trump and Trumpism—becomes the conscience of the party. The former Senate majority leader was the lone Republican to vote against Gabbard, citing her “history of alarming lapses in judgment.” McConnell also was the only GOP vote against Kennedy. In a sharp statement, he noted that as a survivor of childhood polio, “I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.” He excoriated Kennedy’s “record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions.”
It’s no coincidence that McConnell is unlikely to run for reelection next year. And his inconsequential votes against these two prompted the obvious observation: Had he stuck to his guns during the J6 impeachment, it is possible that he would not have had to denounce and vote against such troubling nominees.
Yes, there’s been nothing shocking about Republican behavior in the first weeks of Trump’s march to authoritarianism. But these recent days show us again that the GOP will roll over for anything Trump wants. Trump could not annihilate American democracy without the Republicans’ complete surrender—and he has it. We are unfortunately witnessing that a cult with power can get far more done than a political party that plays by the rules. The GOP has become nothing more than a collection of frightened lackeys and opportunistic flunkies. Its passing deserves no mourning but for the fact that its collapse renders it easier for Trump and Musk to turn America into a dystopian feudal state. Even the death of a coward can have consequences far beyond his own demise.
From David Corn, ourland.corn@gmail.com,2/15/25