Trumpism is the Republican Party

Anyone who thought Republicans would disavow Trump once he was gone live in a fantasy world that does not exist anywhere near the actual reality of America.

But Republicans pushing the censure resolutions have made it clear that nothing that happened at the Capitol, and no amount of evidence linking Trump to it, could have justified a vote to convict him. 

“We did not send him there to vote his conscience, we did not send him there to do the right thing, whatever he said he was doing,” Dave Ball, the chairman of the Washington County Republican Party in Pennsylvania, said of Toomey’s vote to convict Trump during a local TV interview Monday night. “We sent him there to represent us, and we feel very strongly that he did not represent us.”

That really says it all. They just don’t care. Even the patina about doing anything because it is right is gone. It’s about revanchist power and it’s all they care about. You are going to see a massacre in 2022 of politicians deemed not pro-Trump enough. It’s quite possible that in several districts or states these nominees are so far to the right than Democrats defeat them. But when Liz Cheney loses her seat, is a Democrat going to win? No. But whatever wingnut replaces Toomey as the nominee in Pennsylvania? That’s a very different story.

In any case, Trumpism is the Republican Party. There’s just no functional difference at this point, except in the Beltway to some extent.