This Is Swamp Behavior, Mr. Trump
Punishment for disloyalty doesn't drain the swamp. It grows it.
One of the things that Donald Trump’s fans are absolutely certain of is that he is an outsider who is set to drain “The Swamp” - that is, the status quo of Washington D.C. and all the bureaucrats who stand in the way of reforms that can move the country in the right direction.
And the Republican Party’s “Establishment,” the people who have been political Republicans for years or even decades, who wallow in their positions of power and enjoy that power more than they enjoy governing, they are the worst of The Swamp. The status quo that keeps American government stagnant and rotting away is a result of their inaction. And Trump represented a gut punch to that status quo.
Mitch McConnell is a prime example of this. He is someone who wields his knowledge of Senate procedure and experience in Washington D.C. with surgical precision. One story that has always stuck with me is how he once got a Republican consulting firm blacklisted by the NRSC because they worked with Matt Bevin, a Republican challenger for McConnell’s seat.
It’s no secret that McConnel was behind it, either.
The New York Times reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) was blacklisting a GOP ad firm, Jamestown Associates, for working with the Senate Conservative Fund (SCF), which is helping Bevin. Privately, McConnell aides acknowledge that it was McConnell who had Jamestown blacklisted for cutting ads that the SCF ran in Kentucky. McConnell’s former chief of staff, Josh Holmes, spoke to the Times, offering a dark analogy: “The SCF has been wandering around the country destroying the Republican Party like a drunk who tears up every bar they walk into. The difference this cycle is that they strolled into Mitch McConnell’s bar, and he doesn’t throw you out, he locks the door.” Holmes, who is now heading McConnell’s campaign committee, later confirmed on Twitter that his quote alluded to a scene in A Bronx Tale in which a group of mafiosos savagely beat members of a biker gang who vandalized their bar — a scene as violent as any in the movies.
I have no love for McConnell other than the fact that the specific Supreme Court majority we have is because of him and, without him, Roe v. Wade would likely still be in place. You can say they were Trump’s nominees, but it was McConnell who steered those names in front of Trump.
McConnell does not like anyone to rock his boat, and he’ll do whatever he can to rain his brand of political justice on those who oppose him. Or, at least, he did before his recent… spells… that have called into question his ability to keep going.
But McConnell isn’t the only one. Republicans in positions of power have for years used it to blacklist people, get people fired, etc., and all in the name of their own brand of purity (read: the ability to keep power). I have friends who have been the victims of people of Kevin McCarthy for the same reason.
Which brings me back to the former president. POLITICO is reporting this morning that Trump and his allies are encouraging down-ballot Republicans to not use Jeff Roe and his consulting firm, Axiom, because of “disloyalty.”
Roe works as a consultant for Ron DeSantis, you see.
Former President Donald Trump and people in his inner circle have told down-ballot Republican candidates not to hire Republican strategist Jeff Roe or his political consulting firm after Roe worked to elect Ron DeSantis, according to four people familiar with the conversations.
The admonition against hiring Roe represents an attempt to choke off revenue for his consulting firm, Axiom, in an act of political retribution. Roe was a top strategist for the DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down. Roe resigned in mid-December after the Washington Post published a story detailing backbiting at the super PAC.
Candidates have been warned that hiring Roe could create a political problem for them with the Trump team.
“It’s an open secret that candidates who want to stay on President Trump’s good side should not hire Axiom,” said one of the four people, an influential Republican strategist who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “They are enemy No. 1.”
You can criticize Roe, Axiom, and Never Back Down because of how the PAC was run. You can attribute some of DeSantis’ struggles to it. But to blacklist anyone because they aren’t sufficiently loyal to a candidate isn’t the behavior of a political outsider. It’s the behavior of the very Swamp that Trump has long claimed he wants to drain.
Like it or not, Trump isn’t an outsider. The fact that the Republican base is clearly siding with him, the fact that Republican lawmakers - including those Trump insulted gratuitously over the years, like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz - are now endorsing him in droves, and the fact that the RNC and Fox News are basically acting like his personal comms shop all indicate that Trump is more Establishment than outsider.
It’s Trump’s party, and he’s using the power that comes with that in the exact same ways the party Establishment always has.