Republicans in the era of Late Trumpism
The end is in sight — and it's not pretty for the GOP.
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Since 2016, the Republican Party has been under the thrall of Donald Trump’s personality cult, having traded the party’s “principles” for power.
But as Trump’s political standing weakens along with his increasingly decrepit mind and body, his hold on the GOP is slipping. And the underlying political incoherence of the Republican Party that has only grown during his reign is being fully exposed.
The emerging post-Trump GOP is an amalgam of the neo-fascist extremists Trump welcomed into the party and “establishment” Republicans, whose radically regressive positions are even less popular than they were when Mitt Romney was the party’s standard bearer. These factions are at odds with each other, as well as most of the nation, raising the question what kind of Republican Party will emerge as Trump’s dominion fades.
The travails of the emerging post-Trump GOP are exemplified by the recent exploits of two GOP “leaders” — longtime MAGA stalwart Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who just announced her exit from the House after becoming a “traitor” to Trump, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, a “traditional” Republican who has relentlessly bent and twisted his “principles” to satisfy Trump and is now having one of his few political “successes” by pressuring Trump to endorse politically toxic healthcare policies.
Breaking with Dear Leader
Greene spent years at the fringes of right-wing extremism, thankfully known only to those who delved into the darkest corners of the Internet. She vied for attention by making wild claims, including that Israel was responsible for 9/11 and that school shootings are staged by their victims. Trump, however, proved to be her ticket into “mainstream” conspiracism.
Greene was an avid promoter of the QAnon cult, which posits that Trump is a messiah sent to save the world from a Jewish/Democratic cabal that is, among other things, kidnapping and feasting on white Christian babies. Trump once kept QAnon at somewhat of a distance but has increasingly embraced it in recent years. And Greene, who was initially viewed as an embarrassment for the GOP, found herself becoming a major powerbroker as Trump’s political fortunes rose in 2022 and 2023.
As Trump regained his hold over the GOP from exile in Florida, Greene — who was initially stripped of her House Committee assignments by Democrats following a series of bigoted outbursts — became a bona fide leader and consigliere to short-lived Speaker Kevin McCarthy. She did not “moderate” her views to gain power. To the contrary, McCarthy valued Greene because of her “seemingly innate understanding of the impulses” of the amalgam of racists, xenophobes, and conspiracists she represented and whom Trump fashioned into a key element of the GOP’s base.
Given that Trump cultism was the golden ticket to Greene’s meteoric political ascent, it’s surprised many that she’s deliberately chosen to pick fights with Trump since he returned to power. But Trump cultism is, at bottom, a business, whose entrepreneurs — whether they be influencers posing as politicians like Greene, podcasters, or MMA fight promoters — prosper by maintaining an “innate understanding” of the evolving proclivities of their audiences.
Greene apparently realized months ago that the Trump show was finally beginning to become old, even for previously diehard wackos, with the Epstein files debacle being an early indicator.
Epstein was a longtime obsession of QAnoners and their ilk, not because they have a genuine concern for the victims of his grotesque abuses, but because they believed he associated exclusively with other Jews and Democrats, thereby exemplifying the “globalist” conspiracy they had long posited. But the bubble burst on those claims when press reports, and Trump’s self-incrimination, made it impossible for his cultists to ignore the fact that Trump himself was a longtime friend and associate of the notorious sex trafficker.
This development left many Trump cultists in a quandary, but not Greene. With her intuitive understanding of extremist trends, she saw it as a great opportunity to get ahead of the imminent crack up of the cult she had ridden to political success. Greene loudly broke with Trump, and presented herself as a warrior for the rights of Epstein’s victims, presumably knowing that the end result would be to be labeled a “traitor.”
But Greene did not stop there. She not only emerged as a heretic to the Trump cult but also to GOP orthodoxy by becoming one of the most surprising of advocates for “government run” healthcare.
Throughout her meteoric political career, Greene had been a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act, and declared during her first House campaign that she wanted to see “Obamacare repealed in its entirety.” More recently, she supported the deep cuts in Medicaid included in the GOP’s politically disastrous “Big Beautiful Bill,” despite the fact that the ACA is now supported by a supermajority of voters and that many of her constituents rely on Medicaid and ACA subsidies.
But in October — in the midst of a government shutdown caused by the GOP’s refusal to even negotiate over an extension of the enhanced ACA tax credits — Greene declared she had begun listening to her constituents and now favored extending the tax credits. Until recently, such an about-face by a darling of the Republican right would have been just as unbelievable as Greene’s confrontation of Trump over the Epstein files. After all, staunch opposition to the ACA has been at the center of Republican ideology since the Tea Party era.
While the emerging vision of Greene (as well as of her fellow extremists) is far from “small government” Republicanism, it does not reflect a turn toward moderation or tolerance. During a recent CNN appearance, she advocated for platforming neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, and repeated some of her favorite antisemitic conspiracy theories.
It therefore seems likely that — as Trump’s hold weakens — “populist” extremists like Greene will increasingly advocate for a form of fascist national socialism where “big government” is accepted, as long as its beneficence flows only to white, Christian Americans. If so, they will be on a collision course with “traditional” Republicans, not to mention the majority of Americans.
Pyrrhic victory
The most pathetic Republican politicians of the Trump era are “establishment” figures like Sen. Cassidy, who have compromised themselves repeatedly over the past decade to satisfy Trump and his followers. Yet as the Trump era begins its slow fade and these “mainstream” Republicans contemplate returning to their roots, they find that they are left not only without a moral core but also without a remotely popular political message.
Cassidy is a moralist who frequently reminds audiences of high-minded principles he doesn’t live up to himself. While he did have the courage to vote in favor of convicting Trump following his impeachment in 2021 (when the then ex-president’s exit from the political scene seemed likely), Cassidy since then has repeatedly demeaned himself by betraying his principles in the almost certainly vain hope that Trump will support his reelection bid next year.
A doctor and chair of the Senate’s health committee, Cassidy has vocally opposed the antivax conspiracism and other dangerously unscientific approaches to public health favored by Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But when Trump demanded it, Cassidy provided a decisive vote in favor of Kennedy’s confirmation. Now, Cassidy meets each of Kennedy’s steps to gut the scientific and medical infrastructure of federal public health institutions with little more than tisks and a furrowed brow.
Watching Cassidy in action, one can almost visualize the political chains he’s willingly donned to prevent himself from angering Trump. Yet after a year of total ineffectiveness, Cassidy over the past several weeks has realized his first substantial political success since Trump returned to the White House. He’s been at the forefront of a cohort of “traditional” Republicans who are successfully pressuring the president to continue to gut affordable health coverage for millions of Americans.
Immediately after the November elections, Trump in a rare moment of candor admitted that “the shutdown” — meaning Republicans’ refusal to agree to extend the ACA tax credits — contributed to his party’s massive losses. Predictably, Trumpers soon thereafter began to formulate a plan to join Democrats (and “traitor” Greene) in advocating for an extension.
That is where Cassidy and his “establishment” Republican crew sprang into action, demanding that Trump adhere to his longstanding opposition to the ACA. As of this writing, their rearguard campaign appears to be moving toward success — the White House has indicated Trump may be preparing to sign on to Cassidy’s healthcare “plan.”
The problem, however, is that there is no real Cassidy plan and almost certainly never will be. So far he’s offered only warmed over versions of entirely unworkable ideas the GOP establishment has tinkered with since before the ACA was enacted in 2010. That includes substituting “healthcare savings accounts” for actual healthcare coverage, a proven nonstarter.
So if Cassidy and other GOP stalwarts manage to keep Trump onside, millions of Americans who currently rely on the ACA subsidies will be forced to choose between having healthcare and going bankrupt. Republicans will likely pay a huge political price for such a course, dwarfing the drubbing they just took last month.
The debacle Cassidy is helping to engineer exemplifies the disarray that reigns in what remains of the GOP “establishment” in the late Trump era, and how utterly unprepared it is to reassert power once Trump leaves the scene.
No good options
In announcing her “retirement” from the House, Greene is signaling she will continue to battle for power in the emerging post-Trump Republican Party, presumably from a highly profitable podcast perch she can use to try to displace the weakening Trump as a leader of the GOP’s wacko wing. Cassidy and his ilk are likewise attempting to reassert influence despite the bankruptcy and unpopularity of the “policies” they purport to stand for, and history of spinelessly abandoning their own “principles” whenever they cross Trump’s desires.
This likely portends a raucous civil war within what is left of the GOP. But given that neither faction commands anything approaching a majority of voters — and indeed that aspects of both of them repulse many Americans — it’s difficult to conceive of a cohesive and robust party emerging out of the ruins being wrought by Trump, regardless of which faction prevails.
Considering the GOP’s legacy, perhaps that is for the better. The party has done untold damage to the nation over the past two and a half decades, particularly during its domination by Trump. America would probably be far better off sending it into the dustbin of history.
That’s it for today
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Can always count on Americans to do the right thing after they've tried everything else?
-- Winston Churchill,
Cassidy is a traitor to his profession and his constituents. MTG is just hopeless. Get a real job, Marge. This is the longest freaking nightmare ever. Wake up people!
Thanks for the perspective ❤️.