As Election Nears, Trump Vaporizes the GOP
Aside from “the border,” Republicans stand for nothing.
WITH SIX WEEKS LEFT until Election Day, Donald Trump and his running mate are terrorizing Springfield, Ohio with lies as Republican officials there beg them to stop. He has endangered Jewish Americans by announcing he will blame them for an election loss. He is promising female voters his victory would make them “happy, healthy, confident and free” and they will “no longer be thinking about abortion,” as he conveys his hate for Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey.
His push for a government shutdown has failed, with House Republicans advancing a continuing resolution that doesn’t include the provision he demanded that would make it illegal for illegal immigrants to vote, despite the fact that it’s already illegal.
If all this seems like chaotic, political flailing, that’s because it is. This is the final stage of the Trump campaign.
Trump is making a disjointed play for base voters by railing against “migrants.” And in his delirium, he pines in ALL CAPS on Truth Social late at night for the voters who have shunned him. There is nothing more here. And Republicans running with him downballot, hostage to his insanity and powerless to separate themselves with swing voters, know it.
Those Republicans are now as incoherent as their leader, with disagreements and inconsistencies emerging over IVF, abortion, Ukraine, tariffs, tax policy, and drug pricing. The only issue that unites them is border security. But it’s harder to talk about that when the issue is tangled up in a racist lie about pets being murdered and eaten.
The death of the GOP started slowly, but it’s happening more quickly this year. Republicans no longer champion the free market or free trade, the rule of law, the Constitution, entitlement reform, debt reduction, limited government, American exceptionalism and leadership on the world stage, personal responsibility, or protections for the unborn.
Instead, they champion Trump.
As he runs out of time, Trump is hurling new policy proposals out of a grab bag: Legalized weed! No taxes on tips, overtime, or social security! A temporary 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates!
Banning taxes on tips was popular; even Kamala Harris copied it. But the rest of this mess has been ignored.
No one is really talking up Trump’s new plan to repeal the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, which was passed in the tax-reform law he signed in 2018.
And Republicans don’t seem to take Trump seriously when he positions himself as a champion of lower prescription drug prices (though he did sign multiple executive orders as president aimed at bringing down those prices). They want to help out their Big Pharma friends and repeal not just the energy portions of the Inflation Reduction Act but the Medicare price negotiations that Trump is expected to retain.
Trump now says he has “concepts of a plan” for health care. But Democrats are treating it as a laugh line. It has been six years since the GOP has had a plan, but JD “If I have to create stories” Vance went out after the debate and pretended some concepts are in play.
There isn’t a childcare plan, either. Republicans weren’t rushing to back up Trump two weeks ago when—in an incomprehensible and humiliating muddle—he attempted to tell the New York Economic Club that childcare costs could be alleviated by taxing foreign governments.
It’s all smoke and mirrors.
THERE ARE ONLY TWO POLICIES Trump believes in and won’t flip-flop on: border restrictions and tariffs. Everything else is subject to political fire sale.
That’s true on foreign policy, where Trump’s worldview continues to be colored by a need to help out Vladimir Putin. One of the worst moments of Trump’s disastrous performance at the September 10 debate was when he refused to affirm he wanted Ukraine to win the war. American allies, particularly those in Europe, saw their fears realized.
The day before, several experts in his party had taken the exact opposite position. Chairmen from the three key House panels urged the Biden administration in a letter to change its current policy and allow Ukraine to use Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) on targets deep within Russia.
“As long as it is conducting its brutal, full-scale war of aggression, Russia must not be given a sanctuary from which it can execute its war crimes against Ukraine with impunity,” wrote Reps. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee—among others.
While America Firsters like Vance and Marjorie Taylor Greene are happy to help Putin, most Republicans are deeply uncomfortable with their party’s new isolationism and betrayal of our alliances.
AND IT’S NOT JUST ON UKRAINE AND NATO where Trump has broken Republicans. Since last year, he has betrayed the pro-life community as well—calling the Florida heartbeat bill “a terrible mistake” in the primary campaign, then backing away from a federal ban. The final affront was this statement he posted on Truth Social last month: “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights.” It was, as so many pro-lifers noted, the statement of a pro-choice politician. One House Republican recently called Trump “functionally pro-choice.”
Trump declared himself a “leader on fertilization” at the debate, but the following week, Senate Republicans voted against the Democrats’ bill to protect IVF for the third time since February. Congressional Republicans all say they support IVF, but Democrats will use those votes in ads nonetheless.
Unlike Trump, true pro-life Republicans, who believe life begins at conception, are opposed to, or at least conflicted about, embryos being discarded during IVF treatments.
Trump’s free IVF plans—combined with his celebration of the Dobbs ruling—are also forcing Republicans to explain why states must decide abortion policy but the federal government should mandate that insurance companies cover IVF.
Republicans still hope historic inflation will win them the election—and it very well could. But they don’t support their nominee’s plans for 10 percent across-the-board tariffs on all imports and 60 percent for Chinese goods. Some Republicans have said bluntly that Trump’s planned tariffs would be inflationary. And Sen. Rand Paul just introduced legislation to require that a president seek congressional authorization before imposing tariffs on imports.
But former Sen. Pat Toomey told Semafor he doubted Republicans would try to stop Trump, predicting Trump’s planned tariffs would cause “Depression-era” unemployment.
This leaves Republicans in agreement on one policy solution they can promise voters in this campaign: mass deportations.
But even on this front, the GOP’s messaging has been complicated. Gov. Mike DeWine and Springfield Mayor Rob Rue have called out the pet eating lies, and others have warned about the threat those lies pose not only to the residents of Springfield but to Haitian Americans, too. Republicans could be talking about how many traffic incidents are occurring in Springfield, or the strain on hospitals and local services that a large and sudden influx of immigrants has brought upon the community. But the story is now all about why Trump and Vance want to lie, traumatize children, and force officials to divert more resources in response to the threats they’ve sparked.
This is the Republican party of 2024. Republicans nominated Trump a third time, after his defeat and his attempted coup, and dissolved what was left of the GOP. There is no consistent messaging. There is no consistent ideology. There is just Trump.
Whether he wins or loses, Trump succeeded in finishing off the Republican party and making it wholly dependent on him.
He got what he wanted—a house of sand. Republicans got what they deserve.