The Trumpian primaries and Trump’s influence
The recent primaries in several states have been framed as a test of Trump’s power. But it’s a test he would be failing no matter what happened, according to the MSM, the Democrats, and other assorted Trump-haters. If his picks hadn’t won, it would have been, “Trump’s now a eunuch, a powerless has-been.” Now that they’ve won, it’s,”Trump’s a dangerously tyrannical bully, controlling everything and everybody through threats and fear.”
In reality, I don’t think it’s either. Trump is as much a reflection and result of opinions on the right as he is a shaper of those opinions. For example, I’ve been seeing significant complaints about Cornyn for quite a while online, Trump tapped into that and also probably escalated it, but it already existed.
Ken Paxton's victory in Texas has, I think, interesting implications for the national political scene.
Coming on top of a string of similar events, this is very bad news for anybody who wants to think MAGA is declining in influence or Trump is a spent force.
I'm not MAGA – I'm…
— Eric S. Raymond (@esrtweet) May 27, 2026
Longer excerpt from the tweet:
Coming on top of a string of similar events, [Paxton’s win] is very bad news for anybody who wants to think MAGA is declining in influence or Trump is a spent force. …
There have been a lot of very determined attempts to fragment the MAGA base and attempt to drive a wedge between them and the Trumpster. I see this on X and other social media – lots of indignant blithering about Israel and the Iran war that seems very light on substance and very heavy on attempting to fracture the Republican coalition.
I don’t think it’s working. [Last night] is evidence that Trump’s endorsement matters, and the base is not kindly disposed towards any Republican pol who’s perceived as not being on his team.
Again, I think the emphasis is wrong there. Yes, there are people who don’t like GOP office-holders who are disloyal to Trump himself, and who consider Team Trump the important thing. But I think the majority of voters support Trump because of what he has done and what he plans to do – that is, his policies – rather than thinking his policies are good because they’re his. Of course,Trump’s personality isn’t separate from his actions, but it’s the latter that most MAGA people emphasize and if he started doing things that were perceived as out of line with those policies he’d be losing their support.
And yes, there are people who want to take over the MAGA movement for various nefarious reasons, including Israel-hatred and Jew-hatred. But there are others who are turning on Trump merely because they are isolationists who perceived him as promising no more wars forever, not just “no forever wars.” But I think that most people on the right understood Trump to be a Jacksonian rather than an isolationist, and see the Iran war as a Jacksonian conflict that is not only necessary but long overdue. In line with that, though, if he ends the Iran war with a bad deal, one perceived as giving away too much to Iran, many of those who have stuck with him so far may become at least somewhat disillusioned.
Also – contrary to the scare propaganda of the left – Trump isn’t going to be running for a third term. If his health holds up, which I sincerely hope it does, he’ll be in office for a little over two and a half more years. Trump’s 80th birthday is only a couple of weeks away, and if all goes well he’ll be 82 and a half on leaving the presidency. At that point, Trump will have a successor or successors. But Trump is sui generis, and there won’t be anyone quite like him again, for good or ill.
I’ll add that the Democrats are becoming identified with corruption. It isn’t new, but the sheer scale of the corruption and grift is mind boggling. It has changed my perception of the Democratic Party, and I doubt I am alone in that. It isn’t just the stupid party, it is the criminal party.
Yes, I think the majority of Trump voters continue to support his team because of his policies and accomplishments. The dismantling of the USAID-to-NGO-to-Democrat pockets pipeline and the shrinking of the federal workforce by over 10% are things conservative voters used to only dream of. I don’t have to love absolutely every utterance coming from Trump to think that he’s a transformative leader moving the country in a positive direction. Leftists know it, and this is the basis for the violent reaction we’re seeing.
The trouble we have had (bar during Mr. Reagan’s years) is that Republican politicians are largely careerists who carry water for business lobbies and wealthy donors and have only a pro-forma interest in anything else. It would be agreeable if that type were wiped out, but that seems an eschatological concept.
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Mr. Reagan had a salutary influence, but the Republican Party reverted to type after he was gone (bar that brief shining moment courtesy Newt).
Or – Republican primary voters don’t believe the polls, so they haven’t yet figured out that the party is over.
So, after the GOP is wiped out this November and in 2028, will GOP primary voters figure it out and start nominating strong general election candidates, or will MAGA continue to rule over a powerless rump of a party?
Cassidy Tillis and Cornyn, have served their purpose which is the swamp but not the Republic
The lattee aided the censorship campaign against the Federalist, or at least didnt do anything againsr the latter
”So, after the GOP is wiped out this November and in 2028, will GOP primary voters figure it out and start nominating strong general election candidates, or will MAGA continue to rule over a powerless rump of a party?”
I do believe you just laid down a marker. Let’s just tack this up on the bulletin board to see if it pans out.
So, after the GOP is wiped out this November and in 2028, will GOP primary voters figure it out and start nominating strong general election candidates,
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The person you’re calling a weak candidate has won three statewide elections in Texas. Julia Letlow, that other weak candidate, has sat in the U.S. House, precisely the preparation Bill Cassidy had before being elected to the Senate. Michael Whatley, that 3d weak candidate, is Ronna McDaniel’s successor as Republican national chairman and a former Bush administration official; he’s Mr. Trump’s courtesy to GOPe.
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I enjoyed seeing the MSM describe Paxson’s victory (along with all the other victories over RINOs) as showing Trump’s “grip on” the party. I guess that sounds more authoritarian than “popularity with.”
At first I thought Bauxite was being sarcastic; then I remembered– Bauxite.
There are very good reasons to be skeptical of polls. They parallel the reasons to be skeptical of the legacy media in general.
I rather frequently comment that my concern about many Democrat office holders is exceeded only by the concern that a sufficient number of people actually chose to vote for them. I wonder, ‘who are these people? What do they think; or do they think at all?’. I liken it to looking into the eyes of my dear, little Calico and wondering, what, if anything, is going on in that tiny brain.
As others have indicated, I support Trump for what he does, despite some personality quirks. But I also think that the personality quirks are a bit of a side show, and that the man is far more complex than the yappers would have us accept.
I believe that Trump is clearing a path through the swamp for the next President, who will be the anti-Trump in every way except policy.
“So, after the GOP is wiped out this November and in 2028, will GOP primary voters figure it out and start nominating strong general election candidates, or will MAGA continue to rule over a powerless rump of a party?”
That was exactly the argument for nominating people like McCain and Romney – that they would be good in the general. It didn’t work out that way.
@ Oldflyer > “I believe that Trump is clearing a path through the swamp for the next President, who will be the anti-Trump in every way except policy.”
There are a significant group of people on the Republican bench who meet that qualification.
The Democrats will still call them “Hitler.”
CC™-R is back again in his Nostradumbass mode; predicting the future.
There are a finite number of crows in the world at any time, fortunately for the species, CC™-R lied about eating crow after President Trump was elected. If CC™-R (aka Baghdad Bauxite) wasn’t a liar the crows would be extinct.
I think you are on to something. He knows what’s needed and he’s doing it. He really really doesn’t care.
The other calculation Bauxite leaves out is that Republicans aren’t running against the D-party of JFK or Clinton, but against the Democrat-Socialist party of Obama, Sanders, Harris, AOC, Mamdani etc.
Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.
It makes a difference.
@huxley:The other calculation Bauxite leaves out is that Republicans aren’t running against the D-party of JFK or Clinton
I agree, they can’t put up cardboard cutouts with “not Trump” written on them in purple crayon. They have to run actual Democrats. For example, the actual Democrat running against Paxton is a guy who has not only committed to God being non-binary but also to running a vegan campaign (this was back in 2022). Even in Texas you can get away with that sort of thing in some areas, but it will be a harder sell in a statewide election.
neo – Different years. Different situations. Different Democratic nominees.
There isn’t a politician in American history who could have won on the GOP ticket in 2008 after Lehman Brothers failed weeks before the election. (And recall that McCain/Palin had a small but consistent lead in the polls before that.)
In 2012 you had an incumbent, who happened to be the first African American president, enjoying record margins and turnout from African Americans and others who (mistakenly) believed they were voting for racial progress. Also (for all his faults) Obama was unquestionably a talented politician.
On the other hand, Trump faced the three weakest nominees in the centuries-long history of the Democratic party. He never faced an incumbent, though he did manage to lose as an incumbent.
Trump won twice. No one can take that away from him. But arguing that the GOP shouldn’t worry about running corrupt charlatans because McCain and Romney lost to Obama is facile.
“I enjoyed seeing the MSM describe Paxson’s victory (along with all the other victories over RINOs) as showing Trump’s “grip on” the party. ”
Kurt Schlichter has an answer to that this morning:
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2026/05/28/savor-our-victory-over-the-establishment-n2676723
CC™-R in full Ahab.
Do you still eat crow, Baghdad Bauxite?
As a computer nerd, I’ve been familiar with Eric Raymond since the early 90s (from “The New Hacker’s Dictionary”, which he edited, based on the famous “Jargon file”), and used to read his blog religiously. Now he posts on X and has some of the most incisive commentary on American politics and plenty of other topics outside of his area of expertise.
Regarding Charles’ statement above:
“It isn’t just the stupid party, it is the criminal party.”
No. The Republican Party is the stupid party. But yes, the Democrat Party is the criminal party. Or to be more precise: the more criminal party.
As I’ve been saying since the early 2000s: The Republicans promise they’ll do good things, but usually do stupid things instead. The Democrats promise to do stupid things, and usually go through with their promises.
In my opinion, that makes the Republicans more stupid.
Hey bauxy are you still on food stamps since Trump wiped out your IRA lol
Yes hes an iconoclast
Trump triumphed over the results of obama with hillary being his designated successor, most of her staff would have been loyal to him
Mccain nor Romney really had much of a mobilization effort its very likely he wasnt interesting in winning look at the jones memo (that was the cover story)
The two expeditions plus the very convenient lehman bros blow out probably proves very strong headwinds along with a fully weaponized facebook and twitter
Trump didn’t lose 2020 it was stolen. And because some of the methods were “zero-day exploits” the enemy knew they would NOT have those methods available in 24 which the whole point of the evil lawfare against him trying to keep him from being POTUS again.
We are ending the fraud, the election fraud, the vote fraud, the voter fraud, the census fraud, the apportionment fraud, the benefits fraud. All of it.
No he won three times and it was stolen in maricopa and fulton countys among others the persecutions of the likes of tina peters among others
Never before has actually investigating voter fraud punished by the ruling party
This has continued with the disbarring of john eastman and attempts against steven clark ongoing
Imagine if election denialism could have been prosecuting a whole cross section of the democfatic party would have liable
The proscription of the president for similar reasons
There are some that proved brave like guiliani or sydney powell another heroine in my book and other who sold out to the lies like jenna ellis
Well they chose to live by lies ‘just your conscience tell you so’
We discovered how on life support is the rule of law, how close to tyranny we lie, from the danchenko follies to elias mail ballot charade to the proscriptions connected to january 6th
When one of out twenty judges in judge cannon, actually follows the law (and im being charitable) proscription is a term redolent of ancient rome but a host of apparatchiks from andrew weissman to the secretaries of state in maine and colorado are complicit
Ken oaxton was subject to a local variant of this
I was a Trump skeptic in 2016 but voted for him because, well, Hillary. Once I looked at the results it was clear Trump was the *only* Republican who could have beaten her. No one else would have flipped all those rust belt states that hadn’t voted R in decades.
Objectively speaking, Hilary wasn’t a weak candidate in 2016. She was well-known. She had experience. She had an organization. She was connected. She was intelligent and spoke reasonably well. She just wasn’t that likeable and she was arrogant.
So, no, she wasn’t a weak candidate who would be an easy opponent for Trump or any Republican.
Trump barely beat her in the electoral college with a tiny margin of popular votes making the difference.