Kiss the ring.
"It would be a shame if something terrible happened to that nice Republican career of yours."
Two weeks ago my U.S. Representative Cliff Bentz, a Republican, announced that he endorsed Donald Trump and supported his election. Bentz spoke to my Rotary club meeting on Wednesday. He didn't address that endorsement, and I didn't ask a question about it in the question-answer period. I thought it would inevitably have come across as a "hard question" from a Democrat. It would be inhospitable in that Rotary situation, where I am a 43-year member of that club and he is our guest speaker.
After the meeting I heard from two different club members friendly with Bentz, each sharing a supposed explanation for Bentz' Trump endorsement. One told me that he had heard that Bentz had been threatened with a primary opponent if Bentz didn't endorse Trump right away, and Bentz buckled under that threat. That might be accurate. Who knows?
Another club member said there was no threat of being "primaried." It was just that Bentz knew he would need support from fellow-Republicans on issues of importance to his District. An early public endorsement of Trump would solidify Bentz's position on the GOP team. It might mean better support from fellow Republicans for maintaining dams on the lower Snake River, or protecting timber harvests on Bureau of Land Management lands, or any of the other issues of interest to the Congressional District. That explanation, too, might be true. Who knows anyone's real motivation?
What we know for sure is what Bentz did. He endorsed for election a man who orchestrated an effort to overturn the 2020 election by pressuring people in seven states to sign false affidavits claiming to be duly-elected electors. He then pressured his Vice President to use those documents to justify discarding the votes for Biden, allowing Trump to retain office. None of this is a secret. Bentz joined other GOP leaders by hopping onto the Trump train anyway, and did so when there were still GOP alternative candidates.
Here is where we don't need guesswork: Bentz acted in an environment of pressure to show loyalty to Donald Trump personally. Trump is calling out RINOs. Trump published this warning on his Truth Social platform:
Nikki "Birdbrain" Haley is very bad for the Republican Party and, indeed, our Country. Her False Statements, Derogatory Comments, and Humiliating Public Loss, is demeaning to True American Patriots. Her anger should be aimed at her Third Rate Political Consultants and, more importantly, Crooked Joe Biden and those that are destroying our Country - NOT THE PEOPLE WHO WILL SAVE IT. I knew Nikki well, she was average at best, is not the one to take on World Leaders, and she never did. That was up to me, and that is why they respected the United States. When I ran for Office and won, I noticed that the losing Candidate's "Donors" would immediately come to me, and want to "help out." This is standard in Politics, but no longer with me.
Trump finished with this:
Anybody that makes a "Contribution" to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don't want them, and will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL!
The Oregon GOP used to be a diverse party. Republican Senator Mark Hatfield opposed the Vietnam War. Republican Senator Bob Packwood supported abortion rights. Republican governors Tom McCall and Vic Attyeh were moderates. Trump has ushered in a new era of party discipline and loyalty. If you aren't with Trump, you aren't a Republican. You would be on the outs. Trump is purging the party of people of independence or weak loyalty. It isn't enough to support Trump-initiated policies. One needs to support Trump personally.
It is happening right in the open.
At a critical time following the 2020 election Republicans in key positions -- in the military, in the Justice Department, in the White House counsel's office, in the cabinet -- said "no" to Trump when he tried to carry out illegal acts. Those people won't be there in his next administration, and they wont be in Congress, either.
Republicans cannot reform themselves. They are afraid to buck the team. It will take an election. When Trump is clearly marked as a "loser" the Republicans will find their courage.
I am not a Republican and I do not recall whether I have ever voted for a Republican candidate but I have admired many Republican leaders for their capabilities and ideas. As many have said before, today's party is very different from the Dole, Hatfield, Eisenshower, and Rockafeller Party. This primary season has made it quite clear to me that Republicans today do not want such leaders but prefer a rapists, a practioner of fraudulent business practices, a man who stores state secrets in his bathroom, and a leader facing 91 separate criminal indictments. Not only do Republicans want this man as leader of their party, but the leader of our nation. Unlike the founding fathers, it seeems that most Republicans do not believe that character matters.
I think even when He Who Must Not Be Named is on the "outs" the Republican Party will continue to fail to reform themselves. Eventually the orange one will die. They have zero bench, as shown by the failed efforts of other candidates to sway the base in the primaries. Whatever is left of the party will evaporate, with a loss, with a death, but one way or another. Personally I think that is a good thing. The remnant GOP will divide into reasonable fiscal conservatives and lunatic autocrats that pander to the religious right. Maybe the religious right should form its own party, rather than rely on party hacks as it does now.
And then, with three parties (four?), we can hope the Dems splinter as well. George Washington was right. Political parties will be the death of democracy, if left unchecked. Certainly we need more than two, forcing the compromise that is so missing from our government since Newt.