Donald J. Trump is no longer president, but his vile rants and often infantile pettiness live on in the current Republican Party. Many members of the GOP still worship him, which is as mind-boggling as trying to figure out why anyone would align themselves with that juvenile group of conservatives after their antics over the past four years. The craziness has gotten more insane. There’s Matt Gaetz, sex maniac extraordinaire; Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Q-Anon conspiracist nutcase; Kevin McCarthy, mega MAGAt asskisser; Lauren Boebert, top dust-brain bobblehead of the century; and Lindsey Graham, that old goat who looks as if he’s confused about his gender.

One by one, the Republican leaders of Congress have made the trip to Mar-a-Lago to see Donald Trump. Kevin McCarthy visited after the deadly Jan 6 Capitol insurrection, counting on the former president’s help to win back control of the House in 2022. The chair of the Senate Republican campaign committee, Rick Scott, stopped by to enlist Trump in efforts to regain the Senate. Lindsey Graham goes to play golf. But missing from the appearances has been perhaps the most powerful Republican elected official in the country, Mitch McConnell, a onetime ally who ushered the former president’s legislative and judicial agenda to fruition, but now claims to want nothing to do with Trump. The very public pilgrimages, and the noticeable refusal to make one, have placed congressional Republicans at a crossroads, with one branch of the party keeping close to Trump, hoping to harness the power of his political brand and loyal voters for their campaigns, and the other splitting away, trying to chart the GOP’s post-Trump future.

With no obvious heir apparent or leader-in-waiting, the standoff between the party’s two highest-ranking figures poses an uneasy test of political wills and loyalties, particularly for the rank-and-file lawmakers in Congress dependent on both men for their political livelihoods. Congress has become more Trump-like in the former president’s absence, as a new generation of Trump-aligned lawmakers emerges, particularly in the Senate, and more centrist Republicans announce their retirements. The congressional leaders want, and expect, Trump to play a role in next year’s midterm elections as they try to wrest control from Democrats, who have the slimmest majorities in the House and Senate in recent memory. “God, yes,” Graham, R-S.C., said recently. “He’s sitting on a mountain of money and has a 90% approval rating among Republicans.” McCarthy, the House Republican leader, said Trump has been helpful so far in House GOP campaign efforts. “Like all of the former presidents, they help, they’re engaged in many different ways,” McCarthy said. – Lisa Mascaro, US News: GOP Leaders Diverge on Trump, Putting Party in Limbo

Sitting on a mountain of money? I thought the Trumps were basically broke – they’ve been grifting like the world’s coming to an end ever since Donnie started his loud Trump-eting about running for office. (And according to the social media platform Chump just had created wholly for himself, he’s still scheming for his knuckleheaded supporters’ money.) After four long years of insanity, being the world’s laughingstock, and asking how high when Trumpador yelled for them to jump, Republicans are still groveling before the Grand Orange Poobah like he’s a god. I never dreamed that the party of Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes would come to this…lmao.

I’ll admit that thousands, maybe even millions of liberals were crying “Not my president!” upon Trump’s election. But none of them stormed the Capitol, directly causing the death of a police officer, nor did they keep whining and moaning and bitching and throwing tantrums like spoilt toddlers all through the absurdities of the Trump Administration. Democrats did not spout racist drivel for all to hear, such as telling non-White colleagues to ‘go back to your country‘ even though said colleague is an American, nor calling colleagues ‘Buckwheat‘ the way that a grown ass White man recently did in Colorado (and we just know that he’s a Trump worshiper).

Donald Trump caused that Great Whiot on 6 January 2021: “If you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said. He called out: “We are going to the Capitol,” and they went. Using the language of law enforcement, they planned not to attack but to “occupy Congress,” allegedly intending to “arrest” offending members of Congress. On social media and message boards they planned the event in plain sight, organizing zip-ties, handcuffs, and weapons. (Reports to the FBI went unheeded.) “No matter how this plays out this is only the beginning,” one wrote on TheDonald, the infamous, racist pro-Trump message board. REMOVING TRUMP FROM OFFICE DOESN’T CHANGE THE MASS HE ACTIVATED, THE PEOPLE HE INSPIRED.

If the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 didn’t behave like interlopers, perhaps that’s because they had no reason to believe that anything would stop them. They’d been urged to the Capitol by the president, a man who has spent his time in office telling a story of crisis, of power slipping from the hands of its rightful owners, and of illegitimate democracy overtaken by Socialists, Muslims, Mexicans, Blacks, Antifa. White supremacy is nothing new, but for four years Trump has nurtured the most extreme fringe, normalized and radicalized their ideas, and welcomed them into the very center of government. “Lock her up,” Trump said, again and again in 2016, telling a rich tale of Hillary Clinton’s imagined crimes. A few years later, a handful of men heeded his call, allegedly attempting to form a militia to capture Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, calling her a tyrant, a dictator, intending to put her on trial. “Lock them all up,” Trump shouted at a Michigan rally a few weeks later. “Lock her up, lock her up,” the crowd replied. – Alexis Sobel Fitts, Jezebel

Despite Trump’s lies, un-presidential behavior, bigotry, uncouth language, and utter goofiness, he is still lauded as a ‘great’ leader by Republicans, idolized by millions of racist Whites who yearn for the ‘good ol’ days’ – back when Negroes knew their place, hordes of migrants weren’t trying to sneak into America, ‘cancel culture’ didn’t exist, and White supremacy ruled the day. I will bet you my savings – meagre though it is – that they all thought El Trumpo was going to truly ‘make American great again’ by bringing back Jim Crow, kicking the millions of ‘wetbacks’ out of the country, revoking the visas of all non-White foreigners, and repealing not just Obama Care, but the Civil Rights & Voting Rights acts of the 1960s, in addition to Affirmative Action. Even though White Americans live la dolce vita, as do Caucasians the world over, they are petty and selfish enough to make it difficult for others to do the same. These are the people that belong to the Party of God, followers of Jesus Christ and foaming-at-the-mouth evangelists. I pity them because if Hell exists like they believe, all of them are headed for its raging fires.