Is MTG Plotting to Destroy the GOP?
That’s the headline of this piece by Matt Margolis at PJ Media. My first thought on reading the title was: well, join the club. If that’s her goal, she’s got plenty of company on the right – or the former right.
There’s a history to this sort of thing, although the details vary. We’re all familiar with erstwhile conservatives Bill Kristol, and the Cheneys. They didn’t just leave the fold, they decided to turn on it and unite with their former opponents on the left and far left. Two more recent examples are Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, pundits who at least for a while seemed to be solidly on the right and now are in flagrant “tear it down, ha-ha-ha” mode, and although they haven’t joined with the far left they are certainly helping it along by being every bit as awful as the left always claims the right is.
From the Margolis article about MTG:
Greene’s final weeks in Congress have been nothing short of bizarre. The once-fiery Trump loyalist has spent recent days cozying up to liberal media outlets and apologizing to Democrats for her past conduct. She recently appeared on CNN to trash President Trump and the GOP. This is the same woman who spent years trolling progressives and championing conservative causes without apology. Now she’s doing a liberal media blitz and trashing the GOP on her way out. She even participated in a photo op with Code Pink, a left-wing anti-war group.
Despite the alleged effort to oust Johnson, sources say that the plan is likely to fail and that she may not even introduce the motion. However, if it were to succeed, it would be a political disaster for the GOP as we head into the midterms.
And then we have the infuriatingly destructive behavior of a great many Republicans in the Indiana Senate. I don’t pretend to have my finger on the pulse of Indiana, but WTF is this?:
The Indy Star reports:
The Indiana Senate rejected mid-decade redistricting today, capping off a bitter state fight for control of Congress that has divided the GOP, spurred violent threats and dramatically changed the political landscape ahead of the midterm elections.
The failure will likely be seen by President Donald Trump and his allies as a rebuke of his vision for cementing a congressional majority at all costs. Several groups have promised to spend top dollar on unseating those who oppose redistricting, setting the stage for a messy primary if the Senate did not pass the bill.
If it had succeeded, Indiana will join a handful of other states who have changed their maps mid-decade for political goals, likely eliminating Indiana’s two Democratic congressional seats and fracturing Indianapolis in the process.
This was an own goal, something in which the GOP seems to specialize.
J. D. Vance tweeted:
Rod Bray, the Senate leader in Indiana, has consistently told us he wouldn’t fight redistricting while simultaneously whipping his members against it. That level of dishonesty cannot be rewarded, and the Indiana GOP needs to choose a side.
The Indiana Senate is controlled by the GOP, the bill had passed the Indiana House, and it should have passed the Senate easily. I’ve read that Rod Bray has TDS, and that it’s a spite thing, but I have no idea whether that’s true. His Wiki entry offers few hints, except that he’s from a family that’s been active in Indiana GOP politics for a long time.
Trump seems to think it’s Bray who’s the culprit:
“Unfortunately, Indiana Senate ‘Leader’ Rod Bray enjoys being the only person in the United States of America who is against Republicans picking up extra seats, in Indiana’s case, two of them. He is putting every ounce of his limited strength into asking his soon to be very vulnerable friends to vote with him.” …
“Bray doesn’t care,” Trump said. “He’s either a bad guy, or a very stupid one!”
The Time article goes into the supposed reasons for the rejection by the Indiana GOP:
But some local officials have said redistricting close to the 2026 primary will “create chaos,” citing huge expenses in ensuring that voter registration systems are updated to reflect the redrawn maps and that voters are duly informed of the changes. “It would put a great deal of stress on the election system,” Kate Sweeney Bell, clerk of Marion County, said, according to Axios. “That pushes away poll workers, causes longer lines at polling locations, frustrates voters, and ultimately sows distrust in the process.”
It’s also not as if Indiana voters want Republicans to redistrict mid-decade. An August poll found that a majority of them oppose it, and some voters have expressed concern that the new map also diminishes their representation as lawmakers would have to cover a wider, more varied geography. Another poll released in November found that many Indiana voters would instead want state lawmakers to focus on voter issues like property taxes and energy bills.
There’s also concern that the new maps would be “a dilution of Black votes,” given that Carson [a black Democrat member] may lose his U.S. congressional seat after redistricting.
One analyst wrote for the Indiana Capital Chronicle that even with Trump and Republican Gov. Mike Braun pushing for redistricting, state lawmakers may find their political careers in jeopardy if they go ahead with the plan, which would be “breaking faith with Hoosier voters.”
What I glean from that is that they think it would be too much work, and they’re afraid of being called racists. That’s in addition to whatever TDS may exist among the group, and the desire to spite Trump.
There’s this sort of thing:
To state senator Mike Bohacek, there’s also a personal element: his vote against redistricting came in response to Trump’s use of the word “retarded” to describe Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in the President’s Thanksgiving message. Bohacek, whose daughter has Down syndrome, is an advocate for persons with intellectual disabilities, and posted on Facebook that Trump’s “choice of words have consequences.”
Bohacek doesn’t seem to be the least bit perturbed at the idea that the consequence of his anger at Trump’s use of the word “retarded” may be the Democrat left winning control the US House of Representatives in 2026 and not only frustrating the entire agenda of the right but replacing it with their own. I think that Bohacek’s vote really says a lot about so much of the Trump opposition being an issue of style rather than substance, an attempt to show that “we’re not crass like Trump.” Who is the petty one here?
Yeah, WTH Indiana??? I guess it’s a strong holdout of GOPe and many RINOs grazing around.
Anyone from Indy here who can explain?
If you really have principles, you don’t violate them just because someone calls you or other people names. There are too few people with principles holding office in the GOP. The only cure is to make examples, replace a few of them with principled people, and “encourage the others” to act more principled out of venal self-interest.
But there has to be consequences for at least some, or nothing is going to get better. It’s not enough to have an R after the name. That logic is how we got into this mess. The RINOs have to fear that any of them could be next and then they’ll stop being RINOS or they’ll give way to someone who isn’t a RINO.
“I think that Bohacek’s vote really says a lot about so much of the Trump opposition being an issue of style rather than substance”
This is the most frustrating thing about almost all anti-Trump initiatives. That people cannot see past style is … what? … childish, adolescent, short-sighted, just plain stupid….
And I concur with Niketas Choniates re principles.
I’d be interested in hearing from the occasional poster who uses the handle ‘former legislator’.
I haven’t a clue what makes these people tick, other than elected officials are different from you and me.
==
My suspicion about the Cheneys is that they live in a ‘special world’, but a different one than Pauline Kael did. Rank-and-file Republicans are marks you cull votes and contributions from, not people whose interests you actually represent. The family is now quite wealthy (they were not 35 years ago) from two sources: her father’s tenure as the chief executive of a federal contractor and her husband’s earnings as a partner in a Washington BigLaw firm with a ‘government relations practice’. (He has a history of bouncing back and forth between government positions and law firms). Father and daughter owned vacation properties in the same little village in Jackson County, Wyo. She, her husband, and her oldest daughter were using this lodge as a voting address when she was in Congress. (It’s the only county in Wyoming which votes Democratic). The Cheneys have proximate relations who do not live in Special World; bits and pieces indicate they have a rather frayed relationship with that crew (but who knows?).
The people and the moniker “influencer” have been around for a long time now. (20+ years perhaps?) When I first heard the term and what it meant, I thought it was ridiculous. I mean, it just about buzz and not any substance. Well, I was somewhat wrong in that there is some substance. Because, it can actually work.
I am probably over generalizing here, but one possibility is that some of these RINO pols are what I would call “effective narcissists.” That may include actual narcissists by the psych definition, but also include people who have chosen the attention seeking path because they believe or know that they can score influencing points or cash by doing so.
The other cynical possibility that I’ve mentioned before, is that some of these RINOs are being directly bought or extorted.
I’d like to recommend, again (last time I promise), the docudrama Death By Lighting on Netflix. It’s a mini series about Pres. Garfield and his assassination. The political landscape described is deeply corrupt. The title is a purported quote by Garfield likening protection against assassination as being like trying to protect against death by lightning strike.
Jackson Hole in Jackson County, WY is notorious for being a winter hangout of very prosperous Democrats who like to ski and drink. The people who serve them cannot afford to live there. Kinda like Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
much like the wet tories that sabotaged thatcher, (one thing that comes across in the jeremiad, the iron lady, that the likes of major and heseltine, represented by anthony steward head and richard e grant, respectively) were low scheming rats,
they were turfed out by Blair, who in retrospect, was more like Newsom then we’d like to admit,
Pence is the leader of this faction, also the late richard lugar used to be the head of it, beware of rhodes scholars bearing gifts, this was apparently larry preslers hangup, this bipartisanship for the sake of it, like the nunn-lugar bill, which was probably more graft, for Russia, (maybe some nukes were actually saved, i’m skeptical,
informed sources, say the indiana delegation traded with wes moore to hold one seat in maryland, (‘i’m sure the charlatan mountebank will follow through on the promise,) not only did he fake medals but apparently, there was some mischief regarding his yale dissertation,
the bipartisanship, the buddy comedy of spencer cox and josh shapiro, which elided the nihilistic violence of the left faction, who burned down his house, and murdered charlie kirk, and seem to be on the prowl against the likes of tim pool
(a one time colleague of mtg greene,who has been swatted several times) what was that passage from Ezekiel 18,
could this be true, as plausible as any other thing
https://x.com/Rightanglenews/status/1999302399538921982
it seems there are 50 ways to destroy a republic, to paraphrase a paul simon song,to murder a good and wise young man, to destroy those who show promise and nobility, to enable a corrupt camarilla, to loot the treasury, provide jizda in mogadishu as well as rafah, allow tens of thousands, of terrorists to swarm this country, to the grandees of the Delta House fraud, like Bennie Dashiki Thompson, thats just an accident, re the Afghan shooter, in DC,
the work of kristi noem, and rfk jr, and hegseth, must be rubbished, ‘so that no one would dare to rise,’ to challenge the minefield, ‘the worst are full of passionate intensity, (I could use another cognate)that mountebank thanedar, something out of a 90s infommercial, the traitorous Delia Ramirez,
The more dangerous enemies of the Republicans are the likes of the Indiana senate. MTG or Cheney types are no big deal. But when a large bloc shows they aren’t on your side, you are less inclined to vote for them. And then we hear wailing about Trump voters not showing up when he’s not on the ballot. With the average Republican (as they see them), why should they show up?
Even before all this, MTG always struck me as having a screw or two loose. She was ever the sensationalist. To be fair the same could and has been said of Trump himself, but despite that for whatever reason Trump seems to be a bit more rational and magnanimous with his sensationalistic populism than the miriad imitators that have arisen in his wake over the years.
It’s easier now more than ever to gain an audience simply by saying extreme things, espousing aburdities, and resurrecting long dead historical falacies.
on another front, now those who saw nothing wrong in the persecution of trump or guiliani or sydney powell, will see nothing wrong with this,
https://rockymountainvoice.com/2025/12/12/what-colorado-redacted-from-a-federal-prison-letter-and-why-it-matters/
Well well; little by little ( or maybe not so little) the dumb publicans are breaking ranks and beginning to self destruct.
They don’t even need the demonkrats to help them do this.
Why do I think the 2026 midterm elections will be a total disaster for the republicans ??
I suspect the Indiana story is about the vested Republicans seeing little advantage to their own cynical futures by putting their seats at risk from diluted support in their districts as currently configured. I’ve heard the re-districting plan was intended to bring in a couple of additional Republican House seats. That would mean votes would shift from old districts across the new district lines.
While that doesn’t make them RINOs by definition, I guess it’s safe to say they’re not so thoroughly MAGA, they can’t be craven when it comes to their political security.
Of course the Legacy Media will always paint stories like this one as being an indication of crumbling support for Trump, whether it actually is or isn’t.
Keep in mind that Indiana is the home State of Mitch ‘truce on the social issues’ Daniels. In some ways the problem is less Indiana than Indianapolis. Some might find this article interesting for the light it sheds on the Indiana State GOP:
https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/revisiting-mitch-daniels-truce-on
Indiana is not the only State with this problem. Arizona has some of it going on, so does even Texas itself (just look at the battles bettween Paxton and some legislators). In Florida, this year, some GOP legislators tried to transfer all the powers over immigration issues to the State agriculture official, supposedly to better support Trump’s efforts and in reality an effort to sabotage the same.
The top levels of the GOP are disproportionately filled by business advocates, who privately still want the old ‘fiscal conservative/social liberal/open borders’ approach. That’s changing, but the business wing is struggling desperately against it. Indiana is just one example.
MTG has always been in it for the benjamins. I’ve never given her a dime but got dunning emails from her almost daily before I cut them off. Her various gyrations, from going further down the Tucker-Fuentes rabbit hole of Jew-hatred to her recent sidling up to Dems, are likely inspired by some kind of grift.
I predict an ignominious end for her. Nobody takes her seriously now except as a tool for some short-term gain to be discarded. Begging the question whether anyone ever took her seriously in the first place.
I guarantee Mike Pence was involved in this.
@ CICERO,
About Jackson Hole in Jackson County, WY, and, in my words- some snooty, rich people who live there-
It’s just my view, but- I really can’t stand people who think that, [because they make more than [$40,000 a year, + dress like wannabe relatives of President Kennedy], then that, “makes them BETTER than other people”.
It does not.
Just an unfortunate experience of mine: 1] I come from a middle class /doing OK financially family.
2] I usually wear an outfit with a sweater + a nice shirt.
But- on my days off- I don’t mind if I dress casually, + I am not 100% clean shaven. I dress however I like.
At a town known for ski resorts, + [fancy dressed people or wealthy people], I went to a building for a doctor’s appointment.
Since I arrived early, I decided to sit on a bench, in a floor below my doctor’s office, + read a book.
A middle aged couple, about 100-200 feet away from me, came through a door, and into the hallway.
The woman of the couple asked [her husband?], in a timid whisper that was way too loud,
“Honey, who IS that MAN?”
And the man with her, replied in a loud whisper,
“Um, sometimes homeless people come in here, to get into the air conditioning.”
What JERKS.
That was their way of looking down on me, because of the way that I looked.
What I wear has no connection to the money that I make, or what economic class that I am in.
It’s just my view, but- I have no time for people who think that: their wealth,…or their pretending to be wealthy, or their fashionable clothing, makes them somehow, “better” than everyone else.
It does not.
Forget them.
I don’t need them.
Simple explanation for RINO behavior: Follow the Money. Find out where the anti-Trump legislators get their contributions and you’ll have your explanation. Remember Mark Twain’s essay “Corn-Pone Opinions”: “You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is.”
I’m rather fond of both MTG and Lauren Boebert in an abstract way. (The two are not fond of each other). I hope MTG reconsiders and finds salutary public activities in her home town to which she can sign on in addition to whatever she does to earn a living going forward. Electoral politics seems to have taken a toll on her family life. (She’s gone through a divorce in recent years).
That was their way of looking down on me, because of the way that I looked.
==
Mortimer Adler had this remark, “They say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’. Well, remember that the cover is what the publisher wants you to see – first.” You and everyone else in this world is subject to the surface impressions of others. (You’re also calling them ‘jerks’ because of mistaken identity).
I guarantee Mike Pence was involved in this.
==
A lawyer I correspond with offered this assessment of Pence: “A man with a spine of the purest cream cheese”. Pre-emptive surrender is rather on brand with him.
Hi Art Deco,
as you say, “You and everyone else in this world is subject to the surface impressions of others”.
That’s true.
However, I think lookism is one of the worst ways that people can mess themselves up, by judging people, + animals, + judging other things.
me, in the fog, thinking incorrectly that- a red + yellow striped snake, isn’t a poisonous snake, + is a tasty piece of colored licorice, can get me put in the hospital.
THAT will teach me not to judge things by their looks.
Also- I’m calling the 2 people jerks, because they did jerks-like behavior.
In my view, bad behavior, even done by accident, is still bad behavior.
The idiot who gets bitten by a bull, for thinking the bull was a statue, regardless of his motive, gets punished for his mistake.
Cheers.
“His Wiki entry offers few hints, except that he’s from a family that’s been active in Indiana GOP politics for a long time.”
That’s a pretty big hint. Establishment GOP that hates “outsiders” coming in and upsetting the apple cart that’s granted them the perks and privileges they’ve enjoyed for generations.
That’s what makes things like these redistricting efforts so dangerous: Not to mention the ones who just reflexively oppose anything that Trump does, too many in the GOP won’t support it on philosophical/moral grounds “we’re better than stooping to the lows that the Democrats employ”. The dems don’t suffer from such qualms; in any state controlled by the Democrats and that could possibly gain the tiniest political advantage from gerrymandering, they’ll do it even harder than they already have (if that’s even possible, in some dem states, it isn’t).
So our side balks (again) and their side gains even more illegitimate advantage because they have no morals to worry about.
And, of course, the Media ignores Democrat redistricting efforts (or casts them in a positive light) while screaming to high heaven that any efforts by Republicans to counter what the dems have been doing for generations are blatantly partisan, unconstitutional attacks on “our democracy”.
Another perspective:
I think that a lot of Republicans are starting realize that Trump has completely screwed himself and MAGA with tariffs/affordability and his other overreaches. No amount of blaming Biden and arguing that things really aren’t that bad is going to work. (Look at how well blaming Trump and arguing that things really weren’t that bad worked for Biden.)
So what we’re witnessing is the end of MAGA, at least in its Trump-led form. Trump/MAGA attracted a large number of vapid loons, like MTG, whose need for publicity always exceeded their belief in any kind of principle. As Trump continues to wane, I think you’ll see more of them flame out in ever more puzzling and destructive ways.
Regarding IN Republicans, I think they’re just exhibiting the age-old politician’s instinct for self preservation. Putting distance between themselves and Trump is good for their continuing careers as Trump (messily) leaves the scene over the next (hopefully just) three years. I also suspect that more than a few of them are beginning to realize that 2026 and 2028 are going to look a lot like 2006 and 2008 and that gerrymandering can backfire spectacularly when there’s a wave for the other side.
Somehow, for some reason, for some, or one, neo’s post wasn’t about MTG it was really about The Great Orange Whale.
Ahab Ideation.
if she had really been for the money, she wouldn’t have followed the case of the J6ers, we saw how McCarthy and co, reacted to the travesty, probably why she ha been swatted seven times, thats why it’s dissapointing for her to side with Code Pink, the Hamas enabling Stalinists cadres, and some other distractions,
you note the Dems never have this problem, well almost never, Synema and Foghorn Manchin, still saddled us with the Green Nude Eel, that we’re still trying to extricate ourselves, from,
oh noes the walls are closing in, again, but you bought all those silly designs, every one of the lawfare exercises, the Dems have been gaming the system for years, this is how an 80/20 nation, becomes 50/50
similarly with tucker he was forced out of Fox, because he was asking unconfortable questions about not only J6 narrative, but the lockdowns
the conduct of the ukraine war, et al, he seems to have squandered that good will,
I wouldn’t call the Indiana redistricting thing “the canary in the coal mine” but it does seem to be indicative that The Citizens Are On Their Own regarding defensive moves against the encroaching Democrat/Socialist onslaught.
It seems, increasingly, that the GOP is not to be depended upon. Unfortunately, mass has a value all its own, and if the GOP insists on failing in that respect something needs to replace it.
— Art Deco
Way back when Trump picked Pence in 2015/16, I knew it was a mistake. Not because I had any particular animus against Pence, but because I’d seen him in action over the years and I knew the problem.
Pence talks a great game as a social conservative/traditionalist. No question about that. I think he might even mean it on some level.
But when the Chamber of Commerce says ‘jump’, Pence asks ‘How high, sir?” When the chips are down Pence votes the business agenda, and the corporate/business wing in American politics is socially liberal and globalist and firmly for open borders.
“J. D. Vance tweeted…”
Is the irony accidental here?