DAVID MARCUS: For the love of God, will John Thune finally listen to angry GOP voters
There is no question that President Donald Trump is the most powerful person in the Republican Party, but it is equally clear that he was not the reason for four-term Texas Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, getting trounced in his primary Tuesday night. That was all the voters.
When Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Cornyn late last week, the die was already cast. The president, not surprisingly, just wanted his name associated with the win, and that is something that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., desperately needs to understand.
Thune now has the ignoble distinction of being the only Republican Senate majority leader ever to lose two sitting members to primary challenges in one cycle. There was Sen. Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana, before Cornyn, and that doesn’t count Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who declined to seek re-election rather than being trounced himself.
Democrats and the Left explain this sunsetting of so many GOP senators as the cult of Trump at work. CNN’s Van Jones gravely intoned that, "Trump betrayed a decent, honorable man… he destroyed the career of a U.S. senator." This is nonsense that Republicans must not fall for.
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Trump didn’t even campaign against Cornyn. We all know what it looks like when Trump goes after someone, and this time, there was no name-calling or invective from the president. Sure, he made a late endorsement, but he really did leave this in the hands of Texas voters.
For their part, Texas voters sent a message the size of a longhorn through Paxton’s historically large 28-point victory. Sam Houston could have endorsed Cornyn and he still would have lost big.
So if it wasn’t the magical Trump endorsement that turned the tide in the Lone Star State, then what was it?
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The answer to this question, not just in Texas and Louisiana, but all over America, is that this Republican Senate just doesn’t do anything. Its list of accomplishments could fit on a Post-It note.
The reason that Thune and GOP leadership in the upper body give for their geologically slow pace is the 60-vote threshold demanded by the filibuster rules. But in all honesty, it is that limitation, not any given candidate, that voters are rejecting.
The Republican Party and its voters have to answer a simple question: Is it easier to elect 60 GOP senators in order to outflank the filibuster, or is it easier to elect 50 or 51 who will vote to nuke it? The latter seems the fairly obvious answer.
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Flipping the seats of Cornyn, Tillis and Cassidy from no to yes on killing the filibuster likely is not enough to get it done in the next Congress, but it could certainly be part of the platform in 2028 for the Republican nominee and GOP senate candidates.
Right now, what exactly are Thune and the GOP offering to Republican voters if they give them continued control of the Senate? More shutdowns? More wildly popular legislation like the Save America Act that can’t get passed? What’s the point?
You would think Thune would get the message, yet he doesn’t seem to. This isn’t just Trump’s party, it's the voters’ party, too. Thune and his pals think they can wait Trump out, but the next GOP nominee is going to be aligned with Trump and those voters, especially in regard to the filibuster.
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It is true that Trump is imperiled now. He probably cannot get a Supreme Court nominee past this Senate between now and January, especially with Cassidy and Tillis already starting anti-Trump revenge tours.
On the other hand, if Democrats take the House, Tillis, Cassidy and Sen. Mitch McConnell R-Ky., not to mention Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, probably would vote to convict once the inevitable impeachment comes if they were still in their seats.
Trump and MAGA have to take a step back to take two forward.
The reason that Democrats and squishy Republicans are eager to chalk Cornyn’s trouncing up to the cult of the president is that saying Ken Paxton slavishly follows the will of Trump sounds bad, but saying he slavishly follows the will of the voters sounds awesome.
As is almost always the case, President Trump listened to the voters in Texas. Trump didn't tell them not to vote for Cornyn. They told Trump not to endorse Cornyn and Trump heard their anger and frustration over the do-nothing Senate. The only question remaining is whether Thune is finally ready to listen to those desperate voices.