Ya know, the Republicans running for reelection in 2018 could have learned a valuable life lesson from the Lord of the Rings character Grima Wormtongue. The little sleaze spent years poisoning the king’s mind with soft, seductive whispers of palace intrigue to numb him to the world, only to be repaid by being thrown down a flight of stone steps and banished. Apparently none of the GOP members of congress are into wholesome fantasy, preferring a darker brew.
Because this is what is happening as we speak. The Republicans, especially in the House, have spent months whispering sweet notings into King Trump’s ear, selling their souls to some dark master in order to take advantage of the king, and now some nosey, meddling Gandalf has shown up to screw everything up, and awaken the king to the true danger.
Funny thing is, that this Gandalf is not a heroic savior character. It is of course that miserable shit Steve Bannon. Anf the pandering, traitorous Wormtongue’s in the GOP caucus are about to take a header down a flight of stairs for their duplicity.
On the day that Bannon slunk out of the White House, his slime trail soaking the carpet behind him, he swore his vengeance. He was beaten by the elitists, like John Kelly, and Javanka, and the sniveling sneaks in Trump’s own party, and he was going to weaponize his Brightbart platform and have his revenge.
His loyalty to Trump appears to be conditional. Trump is going to have to show some loyalty to the principles and supporters that Bannon holds dear if he is to be spared a thorough grilling in Breitbart. Breitbart’s headline in response to Trump’s budget deal with the Democrats was a shot across the bow, but it didn’t try to land a direct hit on The Prez. This time. But, for Bannon’s perceived enemies in the congressional GOP, all bets are off.
Bannon has already started. The news that Bannon has been caught scheming with Freedom Caucus leader Mark Meadows to plot an overthrow of Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House is not a surprise. Bannon has had it in for Ryan for years. Politically, repacing Ryan may not be the brightest move, since Ryan had to be shotgun-wedding manipulated into taking the job in the first pace, and would quite possibly happily surrender it so that he didn’t have to deal with assholes like Meadows anymore, and who with any political management skills are they going to find to replace him? But Bannon would feel better with a Speaker who goose stepped his way to the podium, so the game is afoot.
But this is the least of the problems for the House GOP caucus. They pandered to Trump for 8 months, without actually producing anything, in the fervent hopes of maintaining the votes his base represented in their column. Up until now, their biggest fear was that a depressed Trump base would sit out 2018, leaving them high and dry. But now, they have an even more pressing dilemma on their hands.
Bannon has no intention of waiting for November of 2018 to exact his revenge. He wants the usurpers to suffer, and he wants them to know that there suffering came directly from him. Bannon is going to be on the lookout for every white, blonde haired, blue eyed, racial sadist he can find to oppose these cause traitors in the primaries. And he’ll find them. And when he does, he’ll bestow the Good Nazikeeping Seal of Approval on them. The incumbents may survive the challenge, but the challenging members of the Twitler Youth will get enough donations to make it a grueling primary, and many of the survivors may be exhausted by the time they reach the general election, and the primary fight may have provided their Democratic challengers with the ammo they need to finish them off.
And it’s not like Trump is going to come to their defense. He has already shown his lack of loyalty to the party by running attack ads against Dean Heller in Nevada, and entertaining playing kingmaker in publicly deciding which challenger he will annoint to run against Jeff Flake in Arizona. It has already been reported that His Lowness is sneaking calls on his personal cell phone to Bannon when Mommy Kelly is out of earshot, so Bannon will have all of the chances he needs to poison Trump’s minds against any percieved unbelievers. And we know that The Orange Julius is susceptible to this, since John Kelly is already trying to oust the useless crony Omarosa rom the West Wing for the crime of spooling up Da Boss with all kinds of salacious gossip that Kelly feels he doesn’t need to be activated over.
So, it appears that a whole lot of GOP House members are stuck between a rock, and a very ‘nother hard rock when 2018 rolls around. And by short sheeting the debt ceiling and budget deal to only three months, Trump has ensured that these members are going to have to vote for another one in December, fresh, easy to remember fodder for a primary opponent. And with the Senate Parliamentarian having already ruled that the tax package that the GOP wants to come up with not being eligible for reconciliation rules, it becomes a 60 vote threshold in the Senate, and unfortunately for Trump, Heitkamp and Manchin can only vote once each. Which means that we are likely to end the year with congress having handed no big ticket victories to the Inglorious Basterd which sniveling House mambers can crawl to him and show off as a reason he should support them. And if the Democrats manage to bash the GOP over the head with a DREAM Act passage in December in return for raising the debt ceiling and avoiding a government shutdown lump of coal in federal employees stockings for Christmas, this will just add more fuel to the fire fir the primaries. This just keeps getting better and better,