The transformation of the Republican Party into a populist anti-government movement has been a bottom-up phenomenon: Conservative voters, radicalized by right-wing radio, Fox News, social media and opportunistic demagogues, rose up for their tea party takeover. Then the greatest demagogue of them all, Donald Trump, harnessed these voters to make the party his own.

This fusion of people and movement has been Trump’s superpower for almost ten years. Party leaders, fearful of his influence over voters, became invertebrates, bowed to his orders and allowed Trump to express his worst impulses unchecked.

The parties’ boneless miracles made Trump’s election possible in 2016. They resurrected him after his post-January 1 elections. 6 drop. And now it looks like their re-emergence to help with his 2024 comeback is almost complete.

I was reminded of the scolding, boneless astonishment that Winston Churchill gave a century ago about a British prime minister from an opposition party: based on a childhood memory of a circus freak by recent news about the two Republican leaders in the Senate, who were among the few parties to support Trump for re-election.

The Republican whip, South Dakota Senator John Thune, conceded on Saturday after Trump won the fourth straight nominating contest in South Carolina.

Then the New York Times

reported

that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who announced Wednesday he will step down as leader this year, is poised to endorse him as well. McConnell has reportedly not spoken to Trump since 2020.

That’s depressing. Certainly, neither McConnell nor Thune has had a profile of courage regarding Trump. In February 2021, McConnell secured the former president’s acquittal in the Senate following his impeachment in the House of Representatives for inciting the January 6 insurrection. Both men have mainly tried to ignore Trump. But at least they haven’t repeated or excused his lies, as have former opponents-turned-Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, J.D. Vance of Ohio, Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina.

Why not keep quiet? No one should be fooled that McConnell or Thune thinks Trump is fit to be president.

Boneless Republican wonders are crowding the Senate, House of Representatives and state capitals, deaf to Trump’s divisiveness, silent about his indecency and with no principles to stand on. We never know what would have happened if a phalanx of Liz Cheneys, Adam Kinzingers and Mitt Romneys had formed to counter Trumpism.

I would commend Nikki Haley for her decision to stay in a losing race against Trump and for her controversial truth-telling about why he is unfit, except that I am confident she will ultimately support him.

I’m not the only one channeling Churchill when I look at the spineless politicians of the Trump era. Early in the Republicans’ fight for the 2016 nomination, conservative columnist George Will noted that Trump’s rivals, “disoriented by their fear and envy of him, are making the Republican Party look like the party of miracles.” without bones. Conservative pundit and Never Trumper Bill Kristol similarly invoked Churchill’s pejorative in a piece for the Bulwark website lamenting Thunes’ surrender. The capitulation of the decent is particularly demoralizing, Kristol wrote.

I share Kristol’s disappointment that the affable, pragmatic Thune, who McConnell hopes to succeed as Republican leader in the Senate, supported Trump;

both of Thune’s rivals for the lead had already done so. As for McConnell, I’m furious that he

even thinks about it, especially now.

McConnell has declared himself one of Ukraine’s leading supporters since Russia invaded two years ago, and Trump, the de facto speaker of the MAGAfied House, is currently blocking congressional approval of further aid to desperate Ukrainians. You would think McConnell would consider convicting Trump, not consider an endorsement

for from

Vladimir Putin’s admirer.

And go back three years, to February 13, 2021. After securing Trump’s acquittal in the Senate that day for his role in the attack on the Capitol, McConnell delivered a speech that remains one of the most damning indictments of Trump ever is by a Republican not named Cheney. Trump’s actions, according to McConnell, were a shameful disgrace! dereliction of duty. Trump was practically and morally responsible for the violence. He seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or torch our institutions.

Would McConnell want that man back in power? In his speech he characterized the January 6 rioters as terrorists. Now he would help re-elect Trump, who calls them hostages and promises to pardon them.

McConnell denounced Trump’s crescendo of conspiracies and his ranting about a stolen election to incite his supporters. Has McConnell seen a MAGA rally recently? Trump is still thundering about that Big Lie, warning his faithful that Democrats, tyrants and fascists, scoundrels and scoundrels will steal the next election unless they are stopped. Does McConnell think political violence is a thing of the past?

At the end of that Senate speech, McConnell assured Americans that the former president was still accountable for everything he did while in office in our civil and criminal justice system. He is not immune, the senator said. Now Trump has gone all the way to the Supreme Court to argue otherwise.

The justices are not expected to side with him, but Trump has another plan to escape responsibility by getting re-elected and making his cases disappear. That’s exactly what support from Thune and McConnell, among others, will help happen.

If a political player like McConnell supports Trump, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise. Still, you’d think an old-fashioned octogenarian wouldn’t want to seal his reputation as a boneless wonder.

@jackiekcalmes