Republicans Are Quietly Throwing Trump Under the Bus
It is quite apropos that in this age of hopelessness, one of the greatest sources of hope is all the destruction around us and the growing dissatisfaction with it per basically every single poll you can find. A new feature of our modern malaise is that airports across America are presently overflowing with absurdly long lines while America’s preeminent chud army hangs out and makes the line at the airport Burger King even longer. This is because the government has been partially shut down since Valentine’s Day, and according to Republican Senator John Kennedy, “The Democrats have offered to open up everything but ICE. Ted [Cruz] and I said okay let’s accept their offer….Trump—as is his right—he said no.”
Kennedy: “Democrats offered to open up everything but ICE. Ted and I said, ‘Ok, let’s accept,’ then at the same time we’d offer a bill for reconciliation where we don’t need any D votes. That way we’re out of the shutdown and DHS is back open. Thune submitted that to Trump. He said, ‘No. No deals.'”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 23, 2026 at 5:39 PM
Hear that folks? Senator Foghorn Leghorn if he had a traumatic brain injury says Trump is to blame for making you wait in line for 7 hours while counting the fat rolls on his shock troops! Please don’t blame individual Republican Congresspeople up for reelection in November! We all know the big guy runs everything around here, right? Oh by the way, we have to pass the SAVE (voter suppression) Act or else Republicans won’t rule for a century, can’t wait to see you at the polls with your birth certificate in November!
This isn’t a defection and I wouldn’t expect anyone in the Republican Party to actually defect from dear leader given that all their internal polling surely reveals that their own voters like Trump more than they like them, but once every so often, Republicans are forced to step into the real world and out of their safe space for bigotry and ignorance, and these are called elections. This is where the a major tension in the GOP lies right now, because Trump wants to end those for good and install a Republican autocracy yesterday, and Trump is on an island of his own by tying the SAVE Act to ending the partial government shutdown.
“I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass ‘THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,’” wrote president deals on TruthSocial two days ago. “Put it all together, and also, let Leader Thune clearly identify those few “Republicans” that are Voting against AMERICA. They will never be elected again!”
Everyone knows that the key to surviving the first electoral backlash every presidency receives is by telling voters to not reelect members of your own party. It’s just smart politics.
“It’s something that I think there is almost unanimous agreement among Republicans on the policy,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the day after Trump posted this edict. “But the idea that we have to guarantee its passage in order to fund the government, I think you all know that’s not realistic.”
That, my friends, is the Republican atop the Congressional food chain publicly telling the president that his demands are “not realistic.” You can coat yourself in as cynical a shell as you want and believe that Teflon Don is invincible and nothing ever happens, but we are a little less than eight months out from an election Republicans look increasingly distressed about, and we have already reached the “the president is to blame” stage of this mess. One of the best ways to have hope in this age of hopelessness is to remember 2006 and 2008, and understand that the dumbest Republicans you have ever seen in your life completely wrecking the entire world do actually face consequences sometimes. I can feel 2006 around the corner. I can smell it on the air. It’s coming with a 20th anniversary present, and Republicans can feel it too.
“Bad idea” said Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Susan Collins of Alaska, in response to Trump sending America’s biggest police academy rejects to patrol airports during the shutdown. “Let us do our job,” Murkowski said to the president through a gaggle of reporters on Monday. She supports the Kennedy-Cruz two-step proposal, and it’s clear that Trump is running roughshod over the GOP Senate’s plan to wriggle out of this unpopular PR nightmare and they’re incredibly annoyed by it. “Anytime you promise something you can’t possibly deliver, you’ve got to have to be held accountable,” said Republican weathervane and outgoing Senator trying to boost his future speaking fees during Woke 2, Thom Tillis. “To be honest with you, there was no path for the SAVE Act in its current form.”
Trump is demanding that the GOP kill the filibuster to pass this bill and that’s why there’s no path for it in its current form. Republicans refusing to kill this power vested in the Senate minority gives you an idea of what their internal polling looks like right now. They are not preparing for a 100-year GOP rule like Trump wants them to.
“It’s a mess” one anonymous Republican senator told PunchBowl News. “No one is quite sure what’s going on.” What’s going on is that Republicans are seeing the horrific polling in closed door meetings with NRSC Chair Tim Scott, seeing how their once seemingly insurmountable Senate majority could be at risk, and no one knows what to do. Trump’s plan is to just make sure the wrong people can’t vote and then we’ll rename America to Trumpland and no one will have to worry about the fake news polls anymore.
But Trump has finally been slowed down by some political gravity. If it was as easy to pass the SAVE Act as Trump’s melting brain believes it to be, his cult would have done it already. His problem is the only thing that Republican Senators truly love in this world more than taking money from poor non-white people to give to their rich donors is the filibuster. The Senate is designed to break everything and make sure government doesn’t work the way anyone wants it to, which is every GOP Senator’s passion, and Trump is learning this lesson that all presidents are forced to understand about the dumbest governing body in the entire world.
“The [Iran] war should never have begun,” said Republican Senator Rand Paul a couple weeks ago. This is in line with his and his father’s libertarian brand that only voted with Trump 74% of the time the first time around, but what he said next I think may be the most revealing quote yet. “I think it’s not good for America. I think what’s going to happen is it’s going to turn the public also against the president and against the Republican Party.” Another notable quote comes from doctor who still has not gotten his wallet back from RFK JR.’s wallet inspector, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), saying “The President’s decision to attack Iran presumably was based upon a clear and present danger to the United States.” Presumably! What confidence in dear leader he has!
“I am tired of the industrial war complex getting all of our hard-earned tax dollars,” said Beetlejuice hand job practitioner Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-CO). “I have folks in Colorado who can’t afford to live.” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) was asked if he was satisfied with the regime’s explanation for the war’s endgame, and he said, “I don’t think the information is sufficient because it’s unknowable.”
Lynching analogy enthusiast Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) also cast doubt on Trump’s plan to wage a quick war with Iran, asking “What are we doing? We’re talking about boots on the ground…They got a whole lot more briefing and a whole lot more explaining to do on how we’re going to pay for it and what’s the mission here?”
“I think we need to find an exit strategy as fast as possible,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), last seen being distracted by the president jangling keys in front of his face on the way to what I presume was a UFO briefing given I’m not sure what else he does in Congress. “I don’t want to put Americans on the ground out there in any shape, form or fashion,” he continued.
Cue the Curb music for some of the president’s most ardent cultists up for reelection later this year, as The Pentagon announced today that it is deploying 3,000 soldiers from the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East. The Trump regime is taking the “you can just do things” meme to its most depraved level yet, and a huge chunk of Republicans in public are saying that they are not on board with this plan. High-profile Republican Senators are now openly blaming Trump for the government shutdown as people’s various media feeds are overflowing with images of the longest lines you have ever seen next to the president’s chud army. If the growing panic currently wafting off of Republican electeds doesn’t at least give you a contact high of hope, I don’t know what will.