On Trump, Michigan Republicans Lean One Way: ‘Fealty at All Costs’

Even after his defeat, Donald Trump is causing fierce infighting among Republicans in a

crucial battleground state. Loyalists are rewarded. Dissenters face punishment.

.What is occurring within the Q-GOP, and has been since trump the con waltzed onto the political scene, is the advancing of rule by personality. donald j. trump's corrupt personality to be precise.

The once respected Party of Lincoln, now the party of donald j. trump and rampant corruption, is careening down the path to irrelevancy and eventual oblivion. Just like the Whig party of old. Which I must clearly state will be a very good and necessary event if this nation is to preserve its democracy and maintain its republic.

While the democratic party certainly has it's warts and hiccups it is no where near as corrupt and anti democracy as the Part of Trump and his sycophantic wanna be bureaucratic tyrants.

Now that the con man trump has skated, twice, from impeachment he is even more emboldened and likely to continue to create havoc within the Q-GOP and in the mechanism of our legislative process. And he is certainly going to make sure those who do not show total and complete fealty to his sorry lying a^s will be made to pay a damaging political price. Something our wise founding fathers foresaw and installed guardrails to prevent. But as we have seen in bright neon lights recently the Q-GOP is not at all the least bit interested in preserving our founding principals of democracy or the republic.

No on to the featured article...

The New York Times - ROCKFORD, Mich. — When Representative Peter Meijer voted to impeach Donald J. Trump in January, making him one of 10 House Republicans who bucked their party, he bluntly acknowledged that “it may have been an act of political suicide.”

This month, during Mr. Meijer’s first town hall event since that impeachment vote, some of his constituents made clear to the newly elected congressman that they shared his assessment — not that Mr. Trump had committed an impeachable act by helping incite a riot at the Capitol, but that crossing him was an unforgivable sin.

“I went against people who told me not to vote for you, and I’ve lost that belief,” said Cindy Witke, who lives in Mr. Meijer’s district, which is anchored by Grand Rapids and small communities like this one in Western Michigan.

Nancy Eardley, who spoke next, urged Mr. Meijer to stop saying the election had not been stolen. She said he had “betrayed” his Republican base.

For Q-GOP'ers winning at any and all costs is the only thing of importance to them. Supporting the trump agenda, even when it is corrupt and obviously wrong, is ALL that matters to Q-GOP'ers.

“I could not have been more disappointed,” Ms. Eardley said. “I don’t think that there’s much you can say that will ever change my mind into not primarying you out in two years.”

Mr. Trump’s acquittal on Saturday in his impeachment trial served as the first test of his continuing influence over Republicans, with all but seven senators in the party voting against conviction. But in Michigan, one of the key battleground states Mr. Trump lost in the November election — and home to two of the 10 House Republicans who supported impeaching him — there are growing signs of a party not in flux, but united in doubling down on the same themes that defined Mr. Trump’s political style: conspiracy theories, fealty to the leader, a web of misinformation and intolerance.

Recent elections in the statewide Republican Party have led to the elevation of Meshawn Maddock, a conservative activist who helped organize busloads of Michiganders to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, the day of the Capitol attack. Mike Shirkey, the majority leader in the State Senate and Michigan’s top elected Republican, was caught on a hot microphone arguing that the riot was “staged” and a “hoax,” a debunked conspiratorial claim now popular among Mr. Trump’s supporters. And, in a vivid indication of a divided state, an attempt by local Republicans to censure Mr. Meijer for supporting impeachment deadlocked, 11 to 11.

For most trumpers once a blind cultist always a blind cultist. Closing ones eyes and ears to the reality that is all around them seems to be the loyal trump cultist and sycophants' strongest suit. And it will eventually bring down the Q-GOP. Which as I stated above will be a very good thing seeing as the Q-GOP has absolutely no principles anymore other than lying and winning at any and all costs.

In the state’s Sixth District, which hugs Lake Michigan, two county branches of the G.O.P. have already voted to condemn Representative Fred Upton, a veteran Republican who also backed impeachment.

Victor Fitz, a prosecutor and Republican official in Cass County who supported efforts to censure Mr. Upton, said the current divide between the party’s base and its establishment wing was the biggest he had ever seen.

“There’s deep disappointment” with Mr. Upton, Mr. Fitz said. “And to be frank and honest with you, I think that there are some who believe, you know, he crossed the Rubicon with this vote.”

With loyalty to Mr. Trump as the all-encompassing point of dispute, Republicans are struggling with the idea of the proverbial big tent, and politicians like Mr. Upton and Mr. Meijer are at the forefront of the conflict. In the months since Election Day, as the president attacked the democratic process and a mob descended on the seat of American government in his name, the dangers of walking in his political shadow have rarely been more clear. However, what’s also clear is that his party shows little desire to break with him or his grievances.

This is not only occurring in Michigan, it is occurring throughout the USA in the Q-GOP under the corrupt and lying direction of donald j. trump. The spell of trump's racist and misogynist doctrine known as Trumpism. A pro authoritarian fascist ideology.

The outcome of this tug of war will decide the direction of a party that is shut out of control in Congress and the White House, and must focus on making electoral gains in the 2022 midterm elections. The G.O.P. tent has made room for conspiracy theories like birtherism and QAnon, as well as for extremist elected officials like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Is there room for anti-Trumpers?

The Michigan Republican Party is “more Trumpy today than it was before the election,” said Jeff Timmer, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party. The former president’s electoral coalition failed, he said, but its adherents are so vehement in their beliefs that the party cannot acknowledge or learn from its mistakes.

“That’s why Trumpism will continue long after Trump. People who weren’t around four years ago,” he said, “people we had never heard of, they now control the levers of the party.”

He added: “When you make a deal with the devil, the story usually ends with the devil collecting your soul. You don’t get it back and have a happy ending.”

The party of trump, the Q-GOP, has indeed and in fact sold its soul to the devil so to speak. It has latched onto the racism, misogyny, corruption, and conspiracy theories of a sociopathic charlatan and con man. It will not end well for the misfits and the anti American cultists of the Q-GOP and Trumpism.