Donald Trump had the entire midterm convention arena in Dallas raise their right hands and swear an oath to him. It wasn’t to the country or even to the party, but to him.
“The greatest president in the history of the United States,” they repeated, and then “loves us so much he can’t even breathe,” they chanted. Then came part that’ll likely be in most Democratic ads before the midterms. “I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try to cheat like hell like they do.”
It was every bit as creepy to watch on Fox News carrying it live as it is to read the description above.
Just ninety seconds before, Trump had been prattling on about how Democrats want to cheat, and Republicans want honesty in our elections, which isn’t as bizarre as the fact that nobody in the room found that insane, or if they did, decided to keep their hands up and pledge fealty to him anyway. What in the sam hell is going on with this party?
Everyone’s been talking about Trump’s bribe to pay American adults $5,000 if the GOP stays in power, and I get it. It IS a massive story about not just socialism but more about how Trump single-handedly undermined the one major talking point his party has gone all in on going into the midterms. I wrote about it too, but the vote bribe isn’t the biggest story to come out of the Republican midterm convention. The cultish loyalty oath is, and so is the fact that everyone joined in. And it’s absolutely killing the Republican Party.
Trump’s loyalty test is the oldest, most reliable and blunt-force tool he's got. And while it’s never really been about agreeing with him, it’s about whether you’ll go out and defend him when he says something completely indefensible. For the better part of ten years, the answer from nearly every Republican who wanted to keep their job has been “how high?” when asked to jump to his defense.
And it works because the price of not doing that is existential for a political career. A long list of principled names has learned this the hard way, including Cheney, Romney, Kinzinger, and many more. Everybody in that arena watched, learned, and now pays the metaphorical protection fee to stay in business.
This week, the political cost of following Trump’s lead fell entirely on the Republican Party.
On Wednesday, he promised every adult in America a $5,000 check if Republicans keep the House and Senate. He tied it directly to the vote and said as much out loud, from the stage of a convention that spent its first night calling every Democrat in America a socialist. By Bret Baier's math, that's $1.25 trillion. Then Trump went on Laura Ingraham and said he didn't need Congress to do it. Wait, what?
And many on the right lost their collective minds, which is what makes this week different. Drudge linked to my “Wealth Redistribution” column with his own “NEW MAGA SOCIALISM” across the top of the page, just above a “VOTES FOR SALE”. Charles Cooke went after Trump in National Review, writing that the president "breaks glass, joins socialists, embraces bribery," and calling the plan "morally, practically and politically catastrophic." Ron DeSantis called borrowing another trillion and a half and dumping it into the economy a recipe for how you get terrible inflation. The Babylon Bee did a bit on it, which is the exceptionally rare conservative snark on a conservative subject.
I’ve warned before that Trump can sometimes look like Fonzie left powerless without his leather jacket, and this week that feels right. Forget National Review and Drudge, as they have long given up the loyalty test, and DeSantis has every reason to put daylight between himself and the polling in the 30s. But lots of loyalists are clearly confounded by the plan.
Ingraham confronted Trump three times over the $5k check and asked why he doesn’t just send the money now if he has it, and didn't let him off when the answer was a riff about negative growth. Vice President JD Vance seemed to sense the political folly and quickly insisted that rich people probably wouldn't get a check, which was a weird clarification given that nobody said that the night before. Republican candidates were interviewed by Kaitlan Collins Thursday night on CNN, and not one of them could say whether this was buying votes, so they all changed the subject. Read the replies under Trump's own Truth Social post if you want to see what his own base is telling him and how they'll never see the money.
I’m no expert on the strengths of loyalty tests, but I’m guessing this is exactly what fading loyalty looks like. That it’s happening on the two safest spaces he’s got, Fox News and Truth Social, should be keeping MAGA, Inc. up at night.
A room full of Republicans swore an oath, on camera, to Trump, asking for their loyalty, cheating clause and all. When they need to support his $5,000 bribe for votes that will add $1.25 trillion to the deficit and likely spike inflation? Not so much. That’s as clear an expression of where things currently stand right now as anything you will find.
So Trump can get an arena to raise its right hand and creepily say whatever he tells it to say. Impressive? The loyalty test works when the cameras are on! But when it comes to support for his $5k voter bribe, which became the GOP platform the second it came out of his mouth? Not so much. And now every Republican candidate is forced to defend this on the campaign trail, which is not what any of them need right now.
And that’s precisely why he’s now killing the GOP’s chances in the midterms.