“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
Trump will die, eventually. When he does, I expect the next generation of Republican politicians to trip all over themselves to try to pick up his mantle. I don’t think any of them will be able to capture their hero’s toxic charisma, but they probably all think they can. Haley’s best path right now is to stay in the good graces of Trump’s followers, and outlive him.
With all due respect to this perspective (with which I do agree), I would not be at all surprised if she now licks Trump’s boots on account of specific, explicit threats about what will be done to her if she doesn’t fall in line right now.
It’s complicated. And in the worst way possible for the Republican party.
Trump is going to lose in 2024, and everyone but him will know that he’s not going to make it to 2028 to run again. He’s going to run his dumbfuck mouth until he dies, which, if the GOP is lucky, will be as soon as possible but probably not.
You can’t “pick up the mantle” of someone who is attenuating before your eyes, doing further injury to two already collapsed brands and images, that of himself and that of the GOP. IOW, you can’t plant, much less grow, while Trump is still shoveling salt into the fields. And it’s only once he dies that you can even start to repair the damage! It’s a death sentence for the party, and a death by slow torture at that.
To piss on top of that shit sandwich, there will be in the not so distant future the stink of failure, disgrace, and outright criminality on anyone and everyone who enabled Trump 2015 - 2028 (if he lives that long, which I would bet against). MAGA will have no more mojo and will be unable to support the current cast of sycophants and miscreants. The party will have to rebuild from more or less nothing. My guess is that the GOP will go the way of the Whigs.
So she will be disgraced as yet another Trump ass-kisser and enabler and be, at best, Queen of the Dead. Good luck with that!
Your posts are inspiring! 
Thanks, I’ll be here all week!
For years I’ve thought that the Republicans have been trapped in a bizarre feedback loop. They cut taxes and the deficit goes up, so the solution is to cut taxes even more. They were angry and lost some elections, so their solution was to get even angrier. Trump lost the presidency, and his endorsements lost the majority in the Senate. To the faithful, the solution is obvious, more Trump.
I think plenty of people within the party can see it happening, but they’re held hostage by their voters. Speaking out and saying that Trump is the problem only makes the problem worse. Principled Republicans have already been kicked out. Smart Republicans are biding their time until Trump dies.
The thing is, that feedback loop predates Trump, and will probably continue after he’s gone. I don’t know what they’ll turn to after he’s dead, but they’ll find some way to make things worse while passionately believing it will make things better.
Was Trump failing to make those threats months ago, though? It seems as though her “success” (relatively speaking) in the primaries has done unnecessary damage if that were the case.
I’m basically with you, but my interpretation is slightly different.
All the GOP had as of 1/6/2021 was Trump and his base. That’s why they kissed his ass. A 100% unprincipled, self-serving betrayal of the American polity (no disagreement yet with what you’ve said).
Yes and yes.
Here disagreement begins, since these guys aren’t smart. They will all be tainted with Trump sycophancy and will fail.
I think the explanation is simple. GOP policies were clearly a failure after Dubya and, more to the point, they had no policies to offer at all. No ideas. All they had to sell at that point was culture war and obstruction under Obama and culture war and fascism under Trump and now Biden.
Facing the incentive system of American politics and the results thereof they could see coming, these execrable fuckers chose to win insofar as possible based on stirring the pot of hatred, insecurity, and resentment simmering in the hearts of white Americans. That was the only way they could win, so they did it. Now they perceive (perhaps not consciously but more in a reptilian way) that the only way to “win” over the long term is to eliminate democracy entirely. They’re evil, so they’re supporting Trump so as to do that.
They don’t “passionately believe” anything. They are rats in the maze trying to get their cheese and not giving a fuck about anyone else. These people are going to go down in American history as the most spinless, cowardly, and evil politicians ever. Yes, I would say that Trump and his GOP sycophants are even worse than the Southerners who seceded in 1861, as the latter believed in something, however twisted and evil it was, while the former believe in nothing but their own power and will object to nothing that gives it to them.
That’s where I think you’re wrong. Republicans don’t consider sycophancy to be a fault; they call it “loyalty” and consider it a virtue. It does not matter if the object of their loyalty is a complete disaster; that can be rationalized away, but disloyalty can’t.
After Trump dies and isn’t in the news every day, his influence among Republicans may wane. They may no longer speak his name, just as they rarely talk about George W. Bush anymore. But woe be unto anyone who opposed Trump while he was alive. Republicans hate to hear “I told you so”, especially from someone who actually did tell them.
The only choice for current Republicans is to toe the Trump line. After Trump dies, say the most glowing things about him that you can, propose your own agenda (even if it directly contradicts Trump’s), and hope you become the next Republican flavor-of-the-month.
In her mind, the presidency of course. She thinks she has hold of say 20% of her party. I think she’s delusional- most of her votes were not votes for her, they were protest votes against DJT. They would have gone to literally anybody who was the last to exit.
True – especially that last bit: the “base” has already repeatedly proven you do not need consistency in content, just confidently tell them that of course this is what they (and Donald) would have supported all along. And even if they notice, we know that another line the Republican Right mouthpieces love to call upon is “That’s in the past, why do you keep bringing it up, let’s talk about moving on”.
That’s especially true of authoritarians, which I think the GOP base is largely composed of, and which the pols (i.e., sycophants) themselves are at least pretending to be.
Nevertheless, I think that after Trump falls (i.e., is seen as weak/disempowered and begins to shed his base) and later dies, his brand will not be good, and his sycophants (i.e., the entire GOP) will look bad to a significant portion of the base that it is left and definitely to the “independents.” Their sycophancy to Trump will be a detriment to them.
But, within a couple of years, the entire GOP will be in multi-modal failure that makes their current problems seem like a cake walk. Determining how much the sycophancy factor will be hurting them will not be simple.
The GOP got away with not being overly tainted by either Nixon nor Dubya, but there is no escape this time around. This is what I’m trying to point out. Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, MTG, and their ilk are not going to be able to reinvent themselves. They will be tainted forever. Nothing will be left of the party.
It’s true that they have to suck on his colon for now just to remain in the party, but after Trump is done, which will be soon, there will be no wiping away of the poo stains.
IF the GOP somehow kicks Trump off as nominee, and IF he is replaced by Haley, and IF she wins in November, it would be interesting that the first female US President would occur in the same year as the first one for Mexico, our North American neighbor.
(Mexico is very likely to elect a female president in the next week).