Sept. 13, 2026, 5:05 a.m. ET
When you’re a sane Republican – and sure, I do imagine such folks exist – the previous week needed to be monumentally embarrassing.
President Donald Trump, who’s horrible at pretending to be a conservative, tried to bribe U.S. voters by saying each grownup would obtain a $5,000 “Trump Dividend” if Republicans win the midterm elections. If it weren’t a whole con, that might price about $1.3 trillion at a time when the nationwide debt has surpassed $40 trillion.
A lot for fiscal conservatism.
A ridiculous and embarrassing GOP midterm conference
The president made the embarrassing kickback supply Sept. 9 throughout an equally embarrassing Republican midterm conference that centered round idolatry of Trump. On the occasion in Dallas, he implored GOP voters: “Faux that I’m on the poll.”
Does that make you are feeling good if you happen to’re a Republican? The top of your occasion threw a two-day celebration of himself in Texas and successfully used the time to say, “Look, I do know these different schmoes working for workplace aren’t that nice, however you assume I’m nice, proper?!?”
It’s a curious technique provided that headlines on Trump’s approval score hold utilizing phrases like “new file low,” “lowest degree but” and “plummeting.”
Trump recites pledge directing Republicans to vote, and cheat
On the second evening of the conference, Trump led the crowd on the not-at-all-packed area in a pledge that ought to make any democracy supporter’s pores and skin crawl: “Please elevate your proper hand. I pledge, to the best president within the historical past of the USA, that loves us a lot he can’t even breathe, that I’ll exit with my household, my pals, I’ll do it any means, I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m gonna try to cheat like hell like they do.”
And that got here on the heels of a video that weirdly mimicked radio commentator Paul Harvey’s well-known 1978 “So God Made A Farmer” speech, utilizing Trump’s birthday to counsel the president is heaven-sent: “On June 14th, 1946, God seemed down on his deliberate paradise and mentioned, ‘I want a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump.”
Lord, my sane Republican pals, are you not mortified by now? Is blasphemy not a ultimate straw? Are the election lies, the unquenchable egotism and the unabashed cult of character not overwhelming?
Issues are unhealthy in America, and Trump is getting worse
I notice people like me have been asking these questions of Republicans since Trump’s first time period. On condition that GOP voters elected the person a second time after he fomented an assault on the nation’s capital, it’s affordable to imagine it’s “something goes” with this crowd.
However this second is totally different. Trump has change into extra erratic, his corruption is extra obvious, his self-absorption extra all-consuming. He’s surrounded solely by loons and lackeys and, maybe most significantly, America feels prefer it’s falling aside.
Because the GOP midterm conference was happening, diesel costs hit file highs of greater than $6 per gallon, inflation remained stubbornly excessive and the totally pointless conflict with Iran that Trump launched with out congressional approval raged on.
New knowledge from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed a 27.4% leap in the price of gasoline because the identical time final yr, and gas oil for heating soared 52%. Individuals are struggling to afford groceries and the 80-year-old avatar for Republicanism is laser-focused on constructing a ballroom and a triumphal arch.
Republicans refuse to acknowledge how unhealthy issues are below Trump
C’mon. Your man is mucking the whole lot up, Republicans. No matter occurred to the occasion of non-public accountability?
Fairly than acknowledge that issues exist, candidates up and down the poll have adopted the president’s “faux the whole lot is wonderful” method. Texas legal professional basic and Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton glazed Trump on the conference: “He’s delivered extra for this nation than anybody earlier than, secured victories for America that no different president may, and at all times stood up for Texas. Thanks, Mr. President!”
Sure, thanks Mr. President. Thanks for beginning a dangerous commerce conflict with Canada – one which’s hurting the farmers your Iran conflict was already hurting – whilst you entertain your self by making an attempt to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”
Thanks for being so unserious about oil costs and the Iran conflict that you simply, in your approach to the primary day of the goofy GOP conference, pulled a declare that the conflict will finish “instantly after the election” out of skinny air.
Nearly the whole lot Trump does is a scandal that ought to derail him
The day after the conference ended, Trump was at a 9/11 memorial service on the Pentagon and appeared bored and unable to remain awake.
For another president in American historical past, Republican or Democrat, any considered one of these moments from simply the previous 5 days – a bribe-for-votes scheme, a pledge to cheat, a “God despatched me to save lots of you” video, a sleep at a 9/11 ceremony – would have been a gobsmackingly embarrassing second for the president’s occasion, and a doable presidency ender.
So why, why, why do non-MAGA Republicans let themselves drown in such disgrace? Why have they allowed this loutish character to show their occasion right into a baffling international embarrassment?
Midterms are a ultimate probability for silent Republicans to retake their occasion
I don’t count on a solution. However I proceed to hope there’s a silent minority within the Republican Celebration that’s not less than teetering on being mad as hell and never prepared to take this anymore.
The midterm elections – the nation’s final, greatest probability to curtail Trump’s madness – will present us whether or not that silent minority exists. And whether or not that quiet swath of sane Republicans nonetheless believes in placing nation over occasion.
I received’t maintain my breath.
Observe USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Fb at fb.com/RexIsAJerk.
