By Jeffrey A. Rendall
Trump’s done Republicans a favor by purging the deadweight from the team roster
“Another one bites the dust”. Devotees of legendary rock group Queen surely recall the recognizable 80’s anthem and can play it in their head at a moment’s mention.
Many a sports team has adopted the tune to use as bumper music for fan entertainment. And in the world of politics, the song’s theme has become more and more useful to synopsize the winning streak President Donald J. Trump has amassed in this year’s Republican primaries.
To put it mildly, a number of anti-Trump Republican incumbents have “bit the dust” in their primaries recently. It was a necessary and long overdue result of conservatives hoping to purge the Grand Old Party of ruling class Blueblood elitest establishmentarians who originally campaigned as lovers of limited government and as boat-rockers, but then arrived in Washington and lost their way when the formerly forthright pols fell in love with power and media adoration.
These wayward political souls gravitate towards the open arms of party enemies and cultural personalities eager to sink their claws into anyone willing to stand up to Donald Trump. Really, they’re just enamored with their own perceived stardom and fleeting status with the beautiful people.
Unfortunately, this happens a lot. Or it did until Trump came along and decided to do something to rid the Republican Party of “individuals” who sat in the wagon rather than helped pull it.
Voters have had enough of the naysayers’ lily-livered duplicity. In a commentary titled, “Republican voters want team players”, Kelly Sadler wrote at the Washington Times last week:
“Republican voters are tired of losing. They elected Mr. Trump in 2016 because the political class failed them, turning to an outsider for real disruption. Mr. Trump’s victory in 2024 was largely, in essence, because he is a no-holds-barred fighter. Republican voters want a closed border, law and order, lower taxes, a smaller government and peace through strength. Mr. Trump promised to deliver it for them.
“Rank-and-file Republicans understand that the Democratic Party will do anything to seize and hold power, and they also understand the need to fight fire with fire. To accomplish their policy agenda, ‘Washington norms’ or, as the lawmakers in Indiana found out, ‘Indiana nice’ will not cut it.
“Like it or not, we live in a world of heightened political polarization, where it is all or nothing. They want a party unified around policy goals, with the ruthlessness to accomplish them. This includes ending the filibuster, redistricting and passing bills that align with the president’s agenda… Still, many elected Republicans do not seem to get it.”
No, they don’t. But perhaps more will have a revelation after this year’s Trumpian-wave.
The gist of Sadler’s argument is that politics is a team sport, meaning the sum of all parts of the band is greater than any one individual player. I frequently use this example when promoting the “team” concept with people who are related to me in my own sphere. “If all eleven members of a football team decide to ignore the coach’s call and decide to do their own thing, no play will ever succeed.”
Pretty simple, isn’t it? Politicians win elections by building voter coalitions. They pass legislation by joining with party members to form majorities. Standing on the outside of the group might get you noticed, but it won’t help you win. Ever. Such stand-apart folks are often heralded as “principled” by their enemies, but they rarely get what they want by sticking their fingers in their friends’ eyes.
In politics as in sports, there are no points for second place. I’ve used the example before, but Tiger Woods drew rebuke and comment from longtime golfers when he first turned pro by callously announcing, “Second place sucks and third is worse.” Or, as movie classic Miss Congeniality’s Victor Melling once lectured, “Smilers wear a crown, losers wear a frown.”
Thomas Massie didn’t wear a smile last week. It looked more like he’d finished in third place, which must’ve sucked (according to Tiger Woods!). Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, another victim of an anti-Trump vendetta gone wrong, did actually finish third. That’s right, an incumbent senator being bested by two others in a primary.Isn’t that the definition of futility? Why does this keep happening?
Scott McKay wrote at The American Spectator: “Conservatives have a deep, healthy distrust of politicians. That accounts for a great deal of the loyalty Trump still enjoys more than a decade after his entry into electoral politics — Trump still doesn’t seem like one of them, and he certainly isn’t part of the D.C. cloakroom crowd, and the things he does are, more often than his predecessors, deleterious to the cloakroom crowd’s interests. At one point it was thought Massie wasn’t part of the in-crowd, either, but then he became the darling of people like Ro Khanna and the editors of Politico by joining in the Epstein chorus.”
There is no “I” in team. Conservatives know a selfish Prima donna when they see one. Cassidy and Massie – and now John Cornyn – got what was coming to them.
The Trump phenomenon began about a decade ago. Recall how Texas senator Ted Cruz, the morning after his controversy-stirring speech at the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland, declared to the Texas delegation that “politics isn’t a team sport.” Well, yes it is, Ted. And, if you end up losing in a fair fight, as Cruz did to Trump in 2016, you say “good game” and head back to the bench to do what you can to support the party’s effort from there on out.
Cruz did come around to endorse Trump later that year and lent his considerable skills and influence to helping conservatives join together to defeat Crooked Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Perhaps Cruz’s psychological wounds had healed by then. Or he swallowed his pride. Same thing.
Principles do mean a lot. But the time to advocate for them is within the boundaries of the party team concept. Fight like heck with your political brothers and sisters in the intra-caucus meetings, but come out with hands joined and smiles on your faces to fight the big fight against the opposition.
If you lose, you get nothing. If you swallow your pride and lend your support for a bill, then you get part of what you want. Perhaps the Massie’s and Cassidy’s of the GOP would be better off by listening to Brandon Davis’s “Something’s Better than Nothing” melodical wisdom.
Donald Trump entered politics because he felt the political class of both parties ignored the Peoples’ will and henceforth championed an agenda chock full of practical/populist ideas that rankled the elites. But the voters loved them. In Trump, the conservatives who’d spoken out against illegal immigration found their champion. Trump also told hard truths about forever wars and the mistakes the foreign policy establishment under the Bush presidents committed.
It was music to people’s ears. Trump helped the Republican “team” win when conservatives had grown accustomed to backing wishy-washy establishment go-along-to-get-along types like John McCain and Mitt Romney. In essence, Trump transformed the GOP and provided a voice for those who had none.
This is why he’s succeeded in the political arena and remains popular with his base despite seemingly having departed from his previous vow to not intervene on the international stage.
Now, by openly opposing certain Republican Party outcasts, Trump has quietly assembled a better Republican team. Trump accomplished it without resorting to free agency and he didn’t even need a draft. Trump basically isolated easy targets and used his position as party leader to make the “team” stronger.
Despite Trump’s remarkable record of purging the deadweight of the party, there are those who disagree with his methods. Kelly Sadler’s colleague at The Washington Times, Michael McKenna, in a column titled, “Trump risks GOP majorities by hunting Republican heretics”, thinks conservatives would be better off letting the “heretics” stay where they are. It’s a financial argument, essentially, asserting that millions have been spent thus far in the cycle and not a single Democrat has been defeated.
“It is easy to understand the president’s very natural desire to settle scores. All of us are, unfortunately, motivated to one degree or another by the desire to prove that we were right. Yet it is not clear how this primary season has set the stage for the president to succeed in the final two years of his presidency,” McKenna wrote.
McKenna’s argument is well-taken. There are good points on both sides. But primaries are there for a reason, and Republican voters have used them to streamline the party’s focus, if the establishment would only support their choices. With Trump calling the shots, it’ll likely happen.
Sports teams accomplish similar results by trading troublemakers, or not renewing contracts. Trump – and the voters – have solidified the team by expelling the menaces. And we’ll ultimately be better off for it.
Jeff Rendall is editor and publisher of GolfintheUSA.com and has written about golf and politics for over a quarter of a century. A non-practicing attorney from California, he moved to the east coast three decades ago to pursue and combine his interests in all things American history and culture. Jeff has worked as an intern on Capitol Hill and in various capacities in grassroots organizing and conservative organizations and publications, including a nearly two-decade stint at ConservativeHQ.com. Column republishing or other inquiries: Rendall@msn.com .