Trump exposes the GOP
The power of Trump's endorsements shows how little values matter in the former Party of Lincoln.
Senate Republicans continue to pay the price for their cowardice in the face of Donald Trump’s corruption. Yesterday, the would-be dictator endorsed scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his run-off against incumbent Senator John Cornyn. Cornyn’s Republican colleagues are shocked, disappointed, and outraged. I can’t stop laughing.
Cornyn debased himself over and over again trying to get into Trump’s good graces after he was lukewarm about Trump’s re-election campaign in 2024. Paxton, on the other hand, never wavered in his support. Paxton and Trump are cut from the same cloth. Both men are unscrupulous philanderers who see government service as an opportunity to get rich on the taxpayer’s dime. And both have survived impeachments. Trump went with the guy he knows would never hold him accountable instead of the guy who might find his damaged but functioning moral compass if he got re-elected.
The endorsement clearly took Cornyn by surprise. Just a day earlier, as he cast his vote on the first day of early voting, Cornyn told the press that he believed the president would stay neutral. He figured his embarrassing ass-kissing — photos of himself reading The Art of the Deal, trying to name an interstate after Trump — would keep Trump neutral or on his side. Instead, Trump recognized the obvious. Trump values loyalty over anything else.
Trump is on a roll purging the GOP of anyone with a shred of integrity while watching his victims debase themselves by sacrificing their principles to stay in his good graces. Senator Bill Cassidy spent the past year or so on his knees but Trump endorsed his primary opponent anyway, ending Cassidy’s Senate career. Cornyn is likely next, though he could still pull out a win next Tuesday.
Trump’s real genius is exposing the whole Republican Party. He’s shown that the GOP is a party devoid of values. Loyalty to Trump is the only thing that matters.
Former Tennessee Governor and Senator Lamar Alexander blasted the Senate for failing to hold Trump accountable. He says that Trump should have been convicted for his role in January 6. He also laments what has happened in Trump’s second term, saying in his memoir, “To me, the most disappointing difference between the first and second Trump terms was not what Trump did, but what the Senate majority did not do. Republican senators rarely checked abuse of presidential authority.”
Senators like Thom Tillis and Cassidy, freed from the pressure of re-election, are suddenly feeling their oats. They are taking stands against Trump’s abuses. Tillis has used his power to block unfit nominees and yesterday, in the first significant vote since he lost his primary, Cassidy voted to restrict Trump’s war powers, likely ending the Iran War.
Tillis has been using his noncompliance to highlight his independence, showing up on talk shows and podcasts to explain his newfound moral clarity. In reality, Tillis and Cassidy — and probably Cornyn if he loses — reveal their moral ambiguity. They folded to Trump when it mattered, on votes like RFK, Jr. and Pete Hegseth, and only found their courage when the stakes were gone. If your values and principles are that transactional and tied to your own political future, you don’t have many strong convictions. Trump has exposed them, too.
Trump will continue to whittle down the GOP, ending the careers of people who still maintain a shred of moral character. Congressman Thomas Massie lost his primary because he insisted on releasing the Epstein files. Cassidy lost because he voted to convict Trump of trying to overthrow the government. Cornyn will probably lose because he was slow to endorse Trump two years ago. Tillis had to drop out because he couldn’t convince people he was something he was not — a MAGA guy with an independent streak. And Republicans will continue to choose Trump over character as the president remakes the party in his image — corrupt, amoral, and racist.
I truly can’t understand why they can’t see what we can see, that the fallout from attaching oneself to Trump is career ending for so many. Are they blind or stupid or both? And those who diminish themselves, like a Lyndsay Graham, are so ridiculed by the, okay, liberal press and Democratic leaning electorate, that they are made the butt of jokes and disdain.
Yes, he keeps finding lackeys to follow him, but hopefully the numbers will keep getting smaller along with his abysmal, but still too high approval ratings.
Thanks, Tom. Great wrap-up! To the extent I'm laughing, it's through my tears. I called Thune's and Tillis's offices yesterday, just to pass along my incindiary rage over everything, but the final straw especially - the sweet deal that bent AG arranged over the IRS. I know it was a waste of my time, but dammit! I had to get it out there.