If the GOP = MAGA = Trump, what is the GOP – Trump?

I recently traveled to Indiana. And I can’t make a joke about my arms being tired because I didn’t fly.

As you can imagine I see pro-trumpian messages when I drive from the middle of Maryland to Indiana. (I also see them when I walk through the classy neighborhood across the highway. Rich people, feh). At any rate, the most common thing are on trump/maga flags made out of material that decays on contact with the outdoors. There are hand-painted signs and a scattering of campaign yard signs.

Then there’s a tractor trailer with TRUMP painted on the side in big red letters. And least two full-sized billboards. A few frugal people painted over the letters P E on official Trump/Pence campaign banners and replaced it with the letters V A. The astute reader will be wondering if some signs have been out since at least the 2020 election cycle. Yes.

I know JD Vance’s yet-to-be-officially-announced presidential bid has been endorsed by Kirk, Giver of Strong Hugs and Rubio, Savorer of Presidential Loafers. Loomer, shouter of shouts, has shouted that because Vance wants to be president he needs to dump Carlson. There is an AdvanceVance.org website. However, the fake address and phone number suggest the creator is hoping to sell it. At any rate, it would be unusual if he did not run for president. But during my last trip to Indiana I tried to imagine people buying and flying Vance flags, making hand-painted VANCE signs, or maintaining a Vote Vance billboard for years.

My imagination entertained a flag or two flown by a subset of people who think anyone gives a shit. My imagination isn’t certain that they would bother to replace a VANCE flag when the first one wears out. As for maintaining signs for years? My imagination refused to play along.

Despite reality-dodging maneuvers like attributing Shortfinger’s appeal to a special type of “economic anxiety” that only the worst white people experience, what the Republican base loves about him is that he’s everything they want to be. Not just the undeserved wealth, fame. Not just the power which he is obviously not qualified to wield. He’s an unabashed bigot, gross in several senses of the word, ignorant as fuck, a raping, lying, petty, cowardly tapeworm of a man. He does awful things and brags about them, has more than any normal person could ever want but never, ever stops whining. And people line up to kiss his ass while he sharts in their faces.

That’s what MAGA really means, but “Make Embodying Every Human Character Flaw Great Again” wouldn’t fit on the hat. And thanks to a intensive, long-term rebranding campaign on the part of Republican leadership, that’s what the GOP means. I don’t expect the party to drop its branding any time soon. Not only might that alienate members of the Republican base, who the party is now literally exhorting to eat Moar Red Meat, but doing so would require work.

Since the GOP dropped the “Must have political experience” requirement for its presidents, there’s a glut of people who are qualified to carry the MAGA mantle. Unless someone over there has a cunning plan, the GOP’s next presidential primary could well be overrun by rich weirdos with names like Emperor of Offal who made their fortunes hawking white supremacy and dick pills on YouTube and Twitch.

The right wing’s Republic, good! Democracy, bad! bleating point, along with continued attempts to disenfranchise the Democratic base, which always has knock-on effects to other demographics show the party has chosen to nuke democracy because tricking enough people into voting for them cuts into important graft time. So perhaps leadership will skip the primary, declare someone the New MAGA, and that will be that.