I have a small curiosity around the actual pull Trump will continue to have over the Congresscritters. He may think himself all-powerful, but I have to believe that some of them who hope to have long careers ahead of them will resist any effort to overturn/reduce access to things that are popular with the majority of voters (SS, Medicare, affordable insurance etc.) Will they feel as much pressure to bend to his will now that his days in the political arena are numbered? Will the ones not on the crazy train feel more emboldened to fight him in order to stay elected themselves? JD Vance doesn’t seem to have the same pull on anyone as DJT.
That rather depends on if they believe that voting will actually continue to matter. Under fascism you don’t try to win over voters, you shoot dissenters.
You have a way with words, my friend.
Here’s an early test of whether the new Republican Majority Leader will be Trump’s lickspittle – he has insisted that the new Republican leader allow him to make recess appointments to executive and judicial positions. Senator Rick Scott – who is widely viewed as Trump’s favorite for the position – immediately agreed.
Since the W Administration and under both parties, the Senate has convened pro forma sessions during scheduled recesses to prevent the Administration from making recess appointments. Any individual so appointed would only be permitted to serve through the end of the coming sitting of Congress unless confirmed by the Senate.
The Republican caucus will vote on their party leadership on Wednesday. Whomever receives a majority of the vote in the Republican caucus will become Majority Leader with no further vote taken in the Senate (in contrast to the House Speaker).
On Wednesday, color me surprised if the caucus winner is not MTG or someone like that. 
This is the Senate leadership election, so unless you know something we don’t, she’s not eligible.
Exactly: unlike the Speaker of the House, which could technically not be a House member at all (remember the rumors a while back that the GOP would name Trump the Speaker), the Senate majority leader must be a member of the Senate.
It won’t be all the immigrants. Just the immigrants from what Trump once described as “shithole countries”.
Trump didn’t go into details about what his standard is telling the difference between a shithole country and a non-shithole country but he did give some examples; he said Haiti and countries in Africa are shithole countries and Norway is not a shithole country.
So according to Trump, the United States should ban all immigrants from places like Haiti and Africa and encourage immigrants from places like Norway.
I approve of this use the term “lickspittle” but I claim priority in identifying Elon Musk as Trump’s Lickspittle in Chief even if he did dwaddle for a while in the kiddie pool of fascism with Ron DeSantis. Of course, with Trump, lickspittles get lynchings, so Elon shouldn’t get too comfortable with his role in cleaning Trump’s loafers.
Stranger
Both Trump and Musk are egomaniacs, who believe themselves to be the smartest person in any given room, possessing of the ability to be an instant master in any field of expertise, and generally incapable of any failure.
I suspect that the two of them cannot coexist in the same space for long, before they have a spectacular, bloody falling out.
That’s kind of what I’m living for at this point. I’m hoping for a sensational blowout, where Trump tries to revoke Elon’s US citizenship based on the fact that he overstayed his visa and worked illegally, and then nationalizes all of Musk’s companies, and Elon responds by getting his hordes of Muskovites to denounce Trump as a pedophile (quite possibly true this time) with angry rhetoric and repulsive memes that Elon will justify as “free speech”.
Please, all gods and deities of pantheons around the globe, come together and make this happen!
Stranger