Political Gravity Asserts Itself

Any short term Republican achievements for the foreseeable future will come at the cost of the Party's longterm viability.

This week’s election was a strong confirmation of what we already knew: MAGA is dying, and nothing can revive it. It’s not a movement that’s made to endure.

The results of the 2024 election are coming under renewed and more intense scrutiny with the recent revelations of extremely anomalous results in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties in Florida, and Cambria and Allegheny counties in Pennsylvania, along with hand counts showing significantly different results in several districts in Minnesota that the reported results. These are parts of a whole, the result of which which I strongly believe to be the case: 2024 was a blue wave, but it was manipulated into a marginal red win.

Evidence is mounting to a critical mass, that the basis for the impunity with which MAGA acts-- the idea that there is a widespread appetite in America for their brand of government --is farcical and made up. This is simply not who we are.

Congressional Republicans have shut down the government because Democrats won’t allow them to drown a baby, but sitting on a six-seat margin over the Democrats, Senate Republicans lack the will to follow the instructions Trump gave them long before the shutdown even started: pass a continuing resolution without any Democratic votes.

Senate Republicans are defying the regime. They’re doing it quietly, but just the same, they’re doing it. This further illustrates the lack of unity and cohesion within the Party, and speaks particularly to the weakness of Trump himself, who is literally passing out on camera during press conferences and disappearing for days at a time, presumably for the administration of medical care that is itself so strong that it immobilizes him. He has been subject to regular cognitive tests, which indicates a less than sterling confidence in his ability to lead even among prominent figures in his own administration.

This is the backdrop of the biggest scandal in Presidential history. Trump’s association with Jeffrey Epstein is unclear, and his role in the whole mess ranges from at best an onlooker who negligently let terrible things happen, to at worst a participant, co-conspirator, and assailant. Whatever his role, he’s preventing and impeding the investigation, and rewarding others who prevent and impede. This disruption appears to have been happening for effectively all of Trump’s political career.

He’s also dragging his party down with him. By complying with his apparent wishes to keep the Epstein data out of the public eye, Republican officials are sharing his crime, and protecting child molesters. For representatives Massie, Greene, Boebert, and Mace, this is either a bridge too far, or is what I think it is: people looking past this time to a post-Trump future.

These four Republicans have publicly stated that they will sign the discharge petition, to force a vote by the House of Representatives to release the Epstein Files. Now, such a resolution, even if passed, is not guaranteed to shed the light of day on the scandal, but it does have a definite, observable effect on the political landscape. It forces Republicans to choose between Trump and the values they claim to support, with every single one of them looking down the barrel at a midterm election in which they don’t need any more negative press than they already have. Trump’s weakness, along with his physical and cognitive decline appear to make that an easy choice for many of them.

Releasing the Epstein Files is, to understate it, extremely popular. Speaker Johnson is working on Trump’s behalf to keep that vote from ever happening, because he owes his meteoric rise from backwater congressman to Speaker of the House, to Donald Trump. As such, he will prevent the House from convening for as long as he can. He can’t delay the inevitable forever though, and the longer he does, the more people attribute the shutdown to his party and to him personally, despite his insistence that the shutdown is because the Democrats just won’t let him and his party drown this baby.

MAGA is in its death throes. They’re thrashing and panicking and breaking things in a desperate attempt to divert your attention, because this is it for them. After this, the United States and the world will take a sharp turn away from fascism, autocracy, and oligarchy. After Trump dies, the vast majority of elected Republicans will pretend they never fully supported him, and some may even say they were faking it, as Trump’s most strident supporters fade back into the woodwork, never to engage politically again, and certainly not to stand behind JD Vance.

Republicans can read the writing on the wall, and they know that if they want to stay in power, they will not be able to do so outside the reddest districts without eliminating the word Trump for their vocabulary, except to condemn him, which even now, almost none will do while he still lives.