Why Trump is losing his grip on the GOP (or POP - Party of Putin)

[Joe Capitalist]

https://apple.news/ACNxWCyWKQMeeUQg_kJhCig

Why Trump Is Losing His Grip on the GOP
He rose to power denouncing the phoniness of politics. Now he is pro-phony.
Altitude is a column by POLITICO founding editor John Harris, offering weekly perspective on politics in a moment of radical disruption.
It strains memory now to recall that when Donald Trump first shoved his way into presidential politics seven years ago this spring, and soon after humiliated a long parade of establishment Republicans, his appeal to voters had a coherent dimension.
That is, it was based on a sustained argument that many Americans regarded as credible. The most powerful part of that argument was about the nature of establishment politics in both parties: It was the province of weak and contemptible people. Conventional politicians were calculating, careerist, cowardly — willing to sacrifice principle and the interests of ordinary Americans to suit their own interests. In short, the problem with American politics was that it was dominated by phonies.
Trump’s personality and history gave him special ability to make the phoniness indictment. Journalists and biographers have yet to find a chapter in Trump’s 75 years when he might be described as honest in the conventional sense of that word — someone who tells the truth and follows the rules because it is the right thing to do, even when it is disadvantageous to do so.
But just because Trump is someone who is comfortable lying — anyone paying attention has known that since the 1980s — he was not at the outset of his political career defined by artifice. His grandiose self-conception, his vanity, his gleeful satyriasis — these are common traits in politicians, but most would try to hide them from view. Trump put them proudly on display. On the few occasions he was ever scolded into an apology — such as his notorious comments about how women like to be grabbed by famous people — he backtracked quickly. Whatever else you could say about Trump, he was not a phony.
That history comes to mind this week, as Trump rescinded his previous endorsement of the hapless Rep. Mo Brooks, who is seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Alabama. Brooks’ problem was that he said something that was most likely 100 percent sincere: He believes it is time for Republicans to “put that behind you” and move on from questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump, already dismayed by Brooks’ weak standing in polls, denounced him for the decision to go “woke” and not join Trump in insisting that the 2020 election was stolen.
The move put an especially bright light on a trend years in the making: Trump has moved from being the beneficiary of America’s instinctual suspicion that most politicians are phonies who don’t really believe a thing they say, to being the enforcer against politicians who are insufficiently phony in professing blind devotion to him.

[Earl]

Trump, Trump, Trump!