Republicans are self-destructing

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Republicans would rather self-destruct than save themselves from Trump. That's the title of an opinion piece out today in the Guardian. It's by Sydney Blumenthal, who's a journalist. He used to be an adviser for Bill Clinton. So, you know, take this with a grain of salt, but I I found this piece really interesting and I want to I want to share it with you and then obviously intersperse commentary. I think he's sort of working through some of the questions that I had after um after the primaries that we had last week. Donald Trump wins, Republicans lose. The Indiana primaries on the 5th of May, in which five of seven Trump backed candidates ousted stalwart conservative Republican state legislators who had refused Trump's command to redraw congressional districts, has been the only victory Trump can claim recently.

[00:00:47]Indiana, happily for him, is not Iran.

[00:00:50]His appeal still prevails, at least over an increasingly narrow band of MAGA voters. But the persistence of Trump's domination is a sign of mounting haplessness. His victory is an augury of repudiation. MAGA devotion is hardening in response to his dwindling popularity.

[00:01:10]A telltale reaction of true believers to a failed prophecy. The cult survives.

[00:01:17]The party withers. We keep seeing MAGA members of Congress and Republicans in Trump's administration performing more and more extreme loyalty tests to prove to dear leader that they they will they will do anything that he wants. They're willing to go to prison for him. They're willing to destroy everything in service. They're willing to debase themselves to new extreme levels in order to prove their loyalty to Trump.

[00:01:41]And it's been it's been really baffling for me. Like when when are these guys going to break off? When are they going to realize what's happening? So, when I saw five Trumpers win in the Indiana primaries, I was like, uh, what what does this mean? Right? Okay, let me let me read a little bit further here because maybe it will become clear. On the same day the Indiana Republicans went down to defeat to Sate Trump's vengefulness, a Democrat won a bellweather Michigan state Senate seat by 20 points in a district that Kla Harris carried by less than a point. the bell tolls for thee. This right here, the Republicans have no instinct for separation from Trump other than Tucker Carlson and Marjgery Taylor Green, right? I don't I don't understand why they're not peeling off. No will to stage an intervention, no ability to muster an ultimatum. They have been complicit in their captivity, co-conspirators in their demise. As the ballots were being cast in Indiana to terminate the Republican dissenters, Republican US Senate leaders proposed $1 billion dollars for security improvements to Trump's extravagant ballroom. Originally, Trump promised that corporate donors, many with federal contracts, would finance his vanity. By the way, [ __ ] you, Phil Knight. Nike is now saying, "Oh, maybe we're going to support Trump's ballroom." We all we all understand what we're going to do with Nike now, right? Okay. Um but this is apparently insufficient. The Republican Congress has now been prompted to throw an extra billion compounding the corruption. A tribute to Trump momentarily assuaging his desire to be worshiped as a god is a major campaign gift to the Democrats. While the world burns, Trump spends a good deal of his time talking about interior decorating.

[00:03:27]He can't stop talking about all of the m the the Trump arch, the new goldplated Trump statue, the White House ballroom/far bunker. He can't stop talking about all of the taxpayer money. Oh, now it is the Lysol toilet bowl cleaner blue that they're painting. Um, they're they're finishing over the reflecting pool.

[00:03:49]Well, gas prices are at an all-time high while we can't afford groceries. Okay.

[00:03:55]Trump spends his time talking about interior decorating. More swirling goldlettered signage at the White House is a priority. From the balcony of Ned's private club, across from the Treasury Department, a new favorite hive of Trump officials and the lobbyists clustering around him, one has a bird's eyee view of the demolished east wing. The place appears as if it had been hit by a targeted bomb. Six historic magnolia trees, including some planted by presidents Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jaclyn Kennedy's garden, have been destroyed.

[00:04:28]The wreckage of the White House grounds is representative of Trump's presidency.

[00:04:33]But then he's already defaced the White House as though it is a mere addition to his collection of clubs as decorated by a more tasteless Liberace. Let's let's not forget that the White House is the people's house. It belongs to the American people. Donald Trump is a guest there. He treats it as if it's his own property, right? He treats it as if um it belongs to him and he can do whatever he wants with it. I would argue that a lot of his destruction of uh Jackie O's Rose Garden, destruction of the East Wing, that's a [ __ ] you to the American people. That's absolutely part of his vengeance plan for his failed insurrection and his 34 felony convictions. Okay. Um for all of this, Republicans have handed him another billion dollars. From the beginning of Trump's second term, Republicans instantly adjusted to the abnormal as the new normal. One of his first acts on his inauguration day was to pardon the sentences of nearly 1,600 January 6th insurrectionist convicts. The Democrats proposed a resolution to condemn the mass pardons. "We are a week into the Trump regime, and it can be summed up in one word: lawlessness," said Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington State. from pardoning on mass violent insurrectionists to illegally firing government watchdogs charged with holding him accountable to issuing blatantly unconstitutional executive orders, etc., etc. But the Republican leadership blocked this resolution, which was never brought to a formal vote. The GOP Congress was positioned as the sole check and balance on Trump. But with the suppression of this resolution on the January 6 pardons, they gave Trump license, shackled themselves to him, and sealed their fate. The piece goes on to highlight Republicans during Trump's first term who constrained his power and prevented the republic from completely falling apart. But Republicans have done more this term than go along to get along. They have gone along because by and large they agree with Trump and have profited off of him. Even as many Republicans, particularly in the Senate, detest him.

[00:06:27]They have endless personal stories to tell about their encounters with Trump's narcissism, vulgarity, and stupidity.

[00:06:33]and they do tell them, just not in public. They front for him for his utility to their agendas. The big beautiful bill was a cornucopia of corporate tax cuts. While it slashed Medicaid and food stamps, though many of the Republicans privately consider Trump vile, they have tolerated his bullying if it is directed outward against their enemies and immigrants. The builders of massive detention centers reaping billions in ICE contracts, after all, are big Republican donors. The Republicans indulge in submissive gratification. They assist in building Trump's kleptocracy in order to get their share of dark money. Through these underthe arrangements, they have hollowed out the party. More than a few Republicans have transitioned to appear as true believers, embracing MAGA as Christian nationalist faith, worshiping the leader and casting democracy as the diabolical antagonist. The piece goes on to talk about how political parties have staged interventions with failed or floundering presidents in the past, but not not today's Republicans. They've solidly got their lips glued to Donald Trump's ass, and they will ride him all the way to hell. Right now, as the Republicans doom scroll through dire polls, they grasp at anything to avoid perspective oblivion. With the invaluable help of the right-wing majority of the Supreme Court in its well-timed annihilation of the Voting Rights Act, Chief Justice John Roberts lifelong project, by the way, the Republicans throughout the former Confederate states are feverishly eliminating black representative districts. Restoring the solid south of Jim Crow days is the diehard strategy to preserve Trump and themselves from impending ruin. Constructing a neoconedy along with the White House ballroom are among Trump's legacies. Make America great again. Look away, Dixie Land.

[00:08:23]Trump's takeover of the Republican party has been pretty thorough. Marked by the Indiana primaries. There was no phantom Republican party that can be summoned back from the Twilight Zone. The Republicans are reduced to a mega Trump.

[00:08:36]They lack the independence to stand apart. There is no political strategy, no negative campaign that can overshadow Trump. Where are the rest of the Epstein files? There is no gathering of wise men to assert authority. There is no one in the Republican leadership who would ride down Pennsylvania Avenue to deliver the news that a committee to save America must be imposed over Trump in order to save the party. The Republicans would rather self-destruct than rescue themselves. I think situations are dire.

[00:09:04]I think Republicans understand that they are pinning all of their hopes on a neoconfederacy.

[00:09:10]They are pinning all of their hopes on disenfranchising black voters, women voters, on trying to desperately to consolidate their power amongst a few wealthy, corrupt white men. Reactionary movements like MAGA, they they want to regress us all to a time where we were weaker, less prosperous, more vulnerable, had fewer rights. Movements like that are doomed to fail when the people decide that they're not going to put up with this [ __ ] anymore.

[00:09:35]Republicans have inextricably linked themselves to Donald Trump, to his corruption, to his stupidity, to his vileeness, to his racism, to his destruction of the economy, to the way he's made everything worse for all of us. And I just I don't know about you, but I don't see how Republicans come back from that as long as we are willing to stand up and exercise our rights.