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Since 2016, the Republican Party has been under the thrall of Donald Trump’s personality cult, having traded the party’s “principles” for power.
But as Trump’s political standing weakens along with his increasingly decrepit mind and body, his hold on the GOP is slipping. And the underlying political incoherence of the Republican Party that has only grown during his reign is being fully exposed.
The emerging post-Trump GOP is an amalgam of the neo-fascist extremists Trump welcomed into the party and “establishment” Republicans, whose radically regressive positions are even less popular than they were when Mitt Romney was the party’s standard bearer. These factions are at odds with each other, as well as most of the nation, raising the question what kind of Republican Party will emerge as Trump’s dominion fades.
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The travails of the emerging post-Trump GOP are exemplified by the recent exploits of two GOP “leaders” — longtime MAGA stalwart Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who just announced her exit from the House after becoming a “traitor” to Trump, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, a “traditional” Republican who has relentlessly bent and twisted his “principles” to satisfy Trump and is now having one of his few political “successes” by pressuring Trump to endorse politically toxic healthcare policies.
Breaking with Dear Leader
Greene spent years at the fringes of right-wing extremism, thankfully known only to those who delved into the darkest corners of the Internet. She vied for attention by making wild claims, including that Israel was responsible for 9/11 and that school shootings are staged by their victims. Trump, however, proved to be her ticket into “mainstream” conspiracism.
Greene was an avid promoter of the QAnon cult, which posits that Trump is a messiah sent to save the world from a Jewish/Democratic cabal that is, among other things, kidnapping and feasting on white Christian babies. Trump once kept QAnon at somewhat of a distance but has increasingly embraced it in recent years. And Greene, who was initially viewed as an embarrassment for the GOP, found herself becoming a major powerbroker as Trump’s political fortunes rose in 2022 and 2023.
As Trump regained his hold over the GOP from exile in Florida, Greene — who was initially stripped of her House Committee assignments by Democrats following a series of bigoted outbursts — became a bona fide leader and consigliere to short-lived Speaker Kevin McCarthy. She did not “moderate” her views to gain power. To the contrary, McCarthy valued Greene because of her “seemingly innate understanding of the impulses” of the amalgam of racists, xenophobes, and conspiracists she represented and whom Trump fashioned into a key element of the GOP’s base.
Given that Trump cultism was the golden ticket to Greene’s meteoric political ascent, it’s surprised many that she’s deliberately chosen to pick fights with Trump since he returned to power. But Trump cultism is, at bottom, a business, whose entrepreneurs — whether they be influencers posing as politicians like Greene, podcasters, or MMA fight promoters — prosper by maintaining an “innate understanding” of the evolving proclivities of their audiences.
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