The new conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump’s “grip” on the Republican Party is “slipping.” It is true that despite the best efforts of Fox News, the riveting testimony of the January 6 Committee has seeped out to the Republican electorate, with the result that Trump is no longer assured of the 2024 nomination. It is also true that the Leader’s blessing is not always a guarantee of victory in Party primaries for other offices, since Republican voters like those in Georgia no longer necessarily adopt every one of the Very Stable Genius’s grievances as their own.
But if the MAGA-fied GOP is no longer a Trump Property, it doesn’t matter, because he has transformed it into a nationalist-populist-racist entity; in plainer terms, it espouses the 21st century soft (but rapidly hardening) version of fascism.
The proof is everywhere. In the recent Republican primaries in Pennsylvania, Trump’s preferred Senate candidate, the nitwit celebrity quack Mehmet Oz, eked out a narrow victory, but his opponents were even “Trumpier.” More significant yet, the MAGA-GOP candidate for governor of the Keystone State has vowed that Trump (or whoever ends up wearing the MAGA-GOP crown in ‘24) shall be awarded the state’s electoral votes, regardless of what the actual voters decide. This is the heart of the MAGA push for supreme power in every election from now on: installing Trumps at every level who can and will overrule any inconvenient election results, the will of White Redeemer Jesus being superior to anything the voters might want. Every local election official who is not a fanatical MAGA is to be driven out with the threat or if necessary the reality of violence against themselves and their families. In this Last Crusade, Deus et Trump lo volt!
Do not be distracted, do not be lulled, allow yourself to breathe only the briefest sigh of relief if Trump himself drops dead or is finally indicted between now and Election Day 2024. As Winston Churchill once said during the war against the original version of fascism, that will not be the end or even the beginning of the end. It will only be the end of the beginning.
Emanuel Goldstein 