What The Market Will Bear, Part II

By Baxter

The nation is witnessing the slow deflation of the Republican Party, not unlike a Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon that's reached the end of the parade. It's not an explosion. That happened at the Capitol last Wednesday, and people getting their just deserts takes time. But the collapse is on.

For example, two members of Congress from New York are feeling the heat. Demonstrators are showing up at Lee Zeldin's district office, demanding his arrest, and activists have filed a complaint with the inspector general of the Army Reserve, of which Zeldin is a member. Our own Trumpy representative, Elise Stefanik, has been kicked off the Harvard Kennedy School's Senior Advisory Committee. (Looks like she's "going to go through some things." Hmmm!)

In Republican leadership, Mitch McConnell and Liz Cheney both favor impeachment. The hapless Kevin McCarthy, who surely took "how to be overrated" lessons from Paul Ryan, now stands alone against it.

The sacking of the Capitol was the inciting incident to all this. But don't forget about the loss of two Georgia Senate seats, which has cast the GOP in the minority across the government. And then of course there's the money: Big corporations have cut off Republicans voting against Electoral College certification from future donations. (This needs to apply not just to candidates' campaigns, but also to Congressional leadership PACs and similar fundraising organizations — but so far, it's been enough to scare the bejesus out of the GOP.)

That the saving of American democracy in the last days of Benedict Donald's Presidency may end up resting in the hands of Big Business and Big Tech is pretty depressing. So let's cheer ourselves up with a crystal ball glance at the future of the Republican Party:

The rabid Trumpy base, which the establishment Republicans held their noses and tolerated as long as they got their judges and their tax cuts, will not be on board with abandoning their hero. So the party will split apart, each side expecting the other to give up — with Benedict Donald, Twitter-less but still potent, attacking from the sidelines. Ugly!

Or, at Lindsey Graham observed back in 2016: "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed. And we will deserve it." We cats PURR.