Much like two Labrador retrievers aggressively battling over a decaying chewing bone, Trump has been in a fierce tug-of-war with Mitch McConnell to control the party he believes to be firmly in his grasp. Since his untimely departure from office in January of last year, Trump has been working behind the scenes quietly to exact revenge against those he believes have ‘wronged’ him for not buying into his stolen election narrative and on those he has deemed ‘disloyal.’ Trump’s narcissistic, jejune, egotistical, and petty nature has served as a frequent source of attacks from the media and the left – and yet as time has gone on its not been proven as a falsehood.

Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were censured by the RNC after incurring the wrath of Donald Trump for serving on the January 6th committee. Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s chairwoman, has proven herself to be a mere puppet of Trump’s will and incapable of anything other than virtue signaling blind loyalty to the former President. Under her leadership, the party has shifted from being a political party to a cult endlessly licking at the heel of the King of Mar-A-Lago. While it sounds extreme, it is unbelievable how many midterm candidates seem to feel the need to swear fealty to Donald Trump, many of whom are so clearly desperate to receive the endorsement he provides for such loyal vassalage.

Now, unlike the flip-flopping Chris Christie, who merely wants to abandon ship to run for president in the next election, I am not going to completely castigate what I view as a beneficial presidency. Trump shockingly was a success in many ways due to the fact he had sound economic ideas (Republicans tend to) and he wasn’t incompetent like Obama. 

He thankfully got through a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico, a partial repeal of the horrendous Dodd-Frank law, jobless claims hit a 50-year low, the unemployment rate reached 3.5% while wages went up for the first time in what seemed like forever. Following the genius theory perpetuated by Art Laffer, the Tax and Jobs Act of 2017 caused an economic boom by delivering needed cuts to the middle class while incentivizing business with a new tax policy and by slashing the corporate tax rate. Had it not been for the coronavirus, the American economy would be above all. The Trans-Pacific Partnership was a complete and utter disaster, and it was a relief to see a president who acknowledged China was not a mere competitor but an emerging adversary.

However, he also failed to provide steady leadership by demeaning and often mocking those who disagreed with him and being faced with biased media often provided them more ammunition. Trump’s presidency was marked by a complete failure to unite those around him: he failed to inspire a large portion of the American public, never reaching above a 50% approval rating. He also became the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose both chambers of Congress and re-election in a mere four years – a shocking display considering how the last Republican president managed to gain both of them during his first midterm. 

We are a nation in crisis being led by one of the most ineffective, inept, and foolish presidents in our nation’s history. The American economy is in turmoil, battered by soon-to-be stagflation and a weak job market due to outsourced labor. China, now allied with Russia, has emerged as an economic rival unlike anything America has faced before. It has never been more important in the history of our nation for the American people to be truly united behind a president who can advocate for all of us – a person of stalwart integrity, with moral character that doesn’t brag about sexually assaulting women, and a charismatic steady hand who can inspire the nation in these trying times.

I’m tired of the Republican Party still believing that Donald Trump is the hero we need – he isn’t, and the sooner we drift away from the megalomaniac, the better. Trump’s new ‘kingmaking’ duties have proven a disaster, having endorsed domestic abusers Sean Parnell and Byrant Messner in the Pennsylvania and New Hampshire Senate races respectively. In fact, the Trump-endorsed candidates seem to all have something in common – no clear stance on issues, mere opposition to whatever the Democrats are doing, an insistence that the election was completely rigged, and a rabid disdain for other members of the party. Instead of actually authoring and proposing legislation they seek to go to congress to ‘own the libs’ and end up as social media stars begging for attention and campaign contributions.

I remember all too well the craziness of our previous looney-toon Senate candidates. In Missouri, in 2012, we had a perfect chance to defeat Claire McCaskill running for House Representative against Todd Atkin. Atkin led all major polls until, while discussing abortion in an interview, he said “…from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” 

Thus, on Election Day, McCaskill was re-elected by a fifteen point margin against the Republican, while at the same time Mitt Romney carried the state by nine points in the presidential race, denying us an easy Senate pickup. A candidate in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell was accused of being a “witch” and an even worse fate met us in the swing state of Nevada. Sharron Angle ran on a far-right extremist platform that called for the abolition of Social Security, the destruction of Medicare, and said that rape victims seeking abortions need not worry because it was “God’s plan.” Leading polls even on Election Day, she was eventually hammered by Harry Reid, who had statewide Republicans rally around him in a desperate effort to quell the insanity.

Shockingly, when Mitch McConnell stepped in and began personally vetting and grooming electable candidates, we ended up retaking the Senate in 2014 in a wave election that saw a net gain of 9 seats. The magical secret? “We changed the business model in 2014 and have not had one of these goofballs nominated since,” McConnell revealed to donors in a call, stressing the need to stop the Trump-backed candidates. In an election year destined to be a red wave, it is essential that we prevent his cronies, who continue to damage our institutions, spew hatred and intolerance, and run on unelectable platforms from damaging our chances to save this country from the lunacy of Chuck Schumer.

This is our time for choosing – I implore my fellow Republicans to look past the benefits of the Trump presidency, whatever they may be in opinion, and realize that there are several candidates who will also run on an American-first agenda without the disgusting immoralities of the man himself. We need to defeat Trump’s candidates in our primaries and stop them from truly taking the Republican Party toward the ‘dark side’ and regain control from the fringe faction. 

We so often, and rightfully, bash the Democrats for being seized by a fringe group that only exists on Twitter, yet it seems we are becoming a kool-aid sipping cult that Donald Trump is the Supreme Executive of. If we give Trump any inclination to believe that he has a grip on this party, he will run again for president in 2024. That would be an unmitigated disaster on every front, namely the fact that he is the one Republican who has a less than fifty percent chance of winning realistically, and that he does not have the temperament to return to power. 

Ever since his loss to Joe Biden, Donald Trump went down a spiral of falsehoods and witch-hunting, furiously attacking everyone around him. Betraying Mike Pence, the most loyal contemporary vice president, for simply executing his duty of presiding over the election and proclaiming an unconstitutional theory that he could somehow change the electoral outcome would be indefensible enough if not for the fact he refused to cooperate with the Biden transition and when Trump’s time to “be a man” emerged – he refused to attend his successors’ inauguration, an event that has not happened since Andrew Johnson.

I believe the party’s future lies elsewhere, not in the hands of a would-be 78-year-old who lost his last election and proceeded to spend the next years denying reality, but perhaps in the hands of a certain governor of a sunshine state. It’s time to move on, recuperate from our losses, and plan ahead for the next decade. Because the truth is, the same “swamp” Trump likes to besmirch and lash out about is the same establishment he has created within his own faction. And like the one before it, it needs draining.