Last week, Trump sent a cease and desist letter to the RNC, NRCC, and the NRSC, ordering these organizations to stop using his name in their fundraising campaigns.  His takeover, and ultimate destruction of the GOP is now unavoidable.  The Republican party that we came to know and disagree with no longer exists; in 2016, the party handed trump the keys to the kingdom and he’s now burned the whole thing down.  He’s coopted the entire organization with all of its members, and now has cut off the money they were using to perpetuate themselves.

Think about it – CPAC this year was nothing short of a Trump coronation.  Every single speaker worshiped him, and declared him the only brand the GOP had.  Hell, they even had a golden idol of Trump and everyone wanted to be photographed standing next to it.  No Republican will oppose him on any policy or even publicly disagree with him.  Trump has so amassed support for himself with a radical (and violent) base that he’s cowed the entire Republican delegation at the local, state, and federal level.  After handing the party over to Trump, he’s now cut off the money so he can take it all for himself.

After coopting the party, he’s now using the same tactics he’s always used in life – lawsuits.  Trump’s primary tool, besides prolific lying, is to use lawsuits as a bludgeon to force capitulation to his demands. That didn’t work as president, but it most certainly works in private life, and now he’s turned it on those who have handed him their party and their fundraising apparatus.  Trump’s plan is now crystal clear – when he announced at CPAC last week that he’s not starting a third party, what he meant was there was no need to, because he was taking over the GOP.  Now party leaders have a decision; start a new party to siphon people away from Trump, or just lay low, hoping that one of the criminal cases against Trump sticks enough to take him out of the limelight.

This will be interesting for those of us on the outside of this soap opera to watch.  I can only hope it continues to weaken the GOP and its really bad ideas.

UPDATED: Oh, this is good…

White House press sec. Jen Psaki: "We don't take our advice or counsel from former Pres. Trump on immigration policy." https://t.co/kdimldYgxN pic.twitter.com/ohsrECEXfZ

— ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2021

UPDATE: There have been questions who the reporter was.  It wasn’t an actual reporter, but one of the propagandists for Trump on OAN (One America News) which is not really news.  Her name is Chanel Rion (actually Chanel Nmi-Dayn Ryan. She changed her name when applying for credentials in the Trump WH).  Here’s the whole thing with the Rion video:

REPORTER: Americans are saying immigrant surges are happening under President Biden's watch

PSAKI: Who are the Americans?

REPORTER: The former president

PSAKI: Former President Trump?

REPORTER: Yes

PSAKI: We don't take our advice or counsel from former President Trump pic.twitter.com/I5d0utFNs9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2021

Among the outrages committed by Trump during his 4 year infestation of the WH is the damage he did to the US’s global standing.  Not only did he turn against centuries-long alliances and quit global cooperation (the WHO, Paris Climate Accord, Iranian nuclear deal), he ceded global trade positions to China.  Oh, he talked tough and launched a disastrous trade war, but the real damage he did was allowing China to get a giant leg up on global trade, diplomacy, and even defense.   When Trump was boasting about his “America First” policy, other countries were moving into the vacuum and moving quickly.  After a smaller increase last year due to the pandemic, China announced today an increase in its defense budget of 6.8% as it modernizes and increases its military capabilities.  Xi Jinping, facing no real political opposition, has jumped into the void created by Trump’s bungling cementing not only China’s dominance, but also his own.

Xi saw Trump’s bungling as an opportunity for China, and he took it.  He let Trump think he did the “biggest deal ever”, when, in fact, he pantsed him in front of the entire world, and the only people who didn’t see it were MAGHats and Lindsey Graham.  His trade war and “deal” with China used his crack negotiating skills – he gave China everything it wanted.  The Brookings Institute put it best just before the 2020 election:

“Despite Trump’s claim that “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” the ultimate results of the phase one trade deal between China and the United States — and the trade war that preceded it — have significantly hurt the American economy without solving the underlying economic concerns that the trade war was meant to resolve. The effects of the trade war go beyond economics, though. Trump’s prioritization on the trade deal and de-prioritization of all other dimensions of the relationship produced a more permissive environment for China to advance its interests abroad and oppress its own people at home, secure in the knowledge that American responses would be muted by a president who was reluctant to risk losing the deal.”

Trump’s paper tiger presidency allowed bad actors like Iran, Russian, and China to actually do the opposite of what he boasted would happen.  These countries, without the vigilance of the allies lead by the US to hold them to account, increased their global dominance.  Russia has expanded its cyber operations targeting all global democracies, China stepped into the void to dominate Pacific trade, and Iran is once again expanding its nuclear capability.  Worse, our own allies have backed away from us, and Biden’s aggressive re-engagement has not calmed fears about who the US will elect in 2024 and simply return to Trumpism.  This problem is not going away any time soon, especially with a Senate that can’t even pass a bill that will provide some relief to our long haul misery caused by Trump’s incompetence that was magnified by politicians terrified of his violent supporters.  Remarkably, it seems that Trump’s greatest accomplishment was creating an environment in the US toxic enough to enable domestic terrorism to rise from the shadows out into the light of day for the entire world to witness.  Domestic terrorists espousing fascist ideology and violence doesn’t give our allies confidence in our long term viability and most certainly takes away our moral authority as the biggest proponent of democracy around the world.

The damage Trump did will be long lasting and far reaching.  Republicans, trying to protect their own hides, refuse to acknowledge the problem, and this problem can’t be fixed with more executive orders and the efforts of only one party.  I’m not hopeful.

As JJ talked about on Saturday, Moscow Mitch voted along with 42 other Republicans to acquit Trump, which was expected.  What wasn’t expected was that after the vote, he got up in front of national television and then excoriated Trump for his incitement of the crowd to insurrection and even said that he could be prosecuted by state and federal authorities.  He also said that it was unconstitutional for the Senate to try him, since he’s already out of office.  Never mind that history, precedent, and over 200 legal scholars disagreed, this was the tree he hid behind to excuse his immoral vote to acquit.

We also have to keep in mind that McConnell always plays the long game, always focused on his own position and power.  He was never going to vote to convict because doing so would start a loud mutiny and he’d be ridden out of his minority leader spot in a nanosecond.  Also, politics comes first; everything else comes second.  Everything.  McConnell’s strategy is to create a political dilemma for Biden.  McConnell always had control of the process here.  He now says it was unconstitutional to try Trump after he was out of office, but HE’S the one who refused to take the case before the election.  He created the problem he says in unfixable.  That’s classic McConnell.  Second, he says that the criminal justice system should prosecute Trump – and guess who’s shoulders that falls on?  None other than Biden, who has already nominated Merrick Garland as AG.  The moment Garland would dare move against Trump, McConnell would rush to the microphone to decry “criminalizing politics” and “Biden “politicizing the DOJ,” which, by the way, Trump had already done.

It’s the long game.  It’s always the long game.

It’s amazing how effective multiple billion lawsuits are at stopping illegal behavior.  Lou Dobbs, one of the worst human beings on the planet, has been well known for his incendiary commentary on television for years; he started at CNN as a normal business anchor but moved to Fox Business in 2011.  He was one of the original Obama haters and became unhinged when Trump started making noise about running for president.  Like Sean Hannity, Dobbs was all in on Trump every day, all day.  After Trump lost the election, Dobbs started repeating the same bullshit being spread by Trump, Giuliani, and Powell, especially the lies about Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems.  Those companies finally got a belly full of the defamation, and both sued.  Smartmatic upped the ante big time, naming Dobbs, among other deplorables in their $2.7 billion suit against Fox.  The network unceremoniously showed him the door this afternoon.  It’s over.

Good riddance.  So many more to go.

One of the constant threads that wound through Trump’s infestation of the WH was poor grammar, poor usage, and careless misspellings.  Bringing this characteristic to the end, his lawyers’ answer today to the single article of impeachment filed by the House, Trump’s lawyers, in the introductory paragraph, actually misspelled…wait for it…United States.  That’s right, folks, in the very introduction of his defense of the indefensible, United States was spelled Unites States.  These are supposedly high dollar lawyers with deep experience, and they are so careless in carrying out their responsibilities that they didn’t even bother to spellcheck.  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.