I’m no Nostradamus but…

I guess it’s just an ego thing but sometimes you might want to know if you were right or not. This post will serve that purpose at some point in the future.

It’s always been this writer’s opinion that many people voted for DJT in the 2020 election for the same reason they voted for him in the 2016 election. It’s not that they were in love with the man, they were just less in love with the alternative. In 2020 however, more people were fed up with the man and willing to take a chance on the alternative.

That being said, I still believe that many who voted for DJT in 2016 and 2020 were voting more for their conservative political alignments than for the man himself. It’s just DJT being DJT some would say. Fair enough, although I haven’t heard much of that sentiment since Jan 6th.

As the dust is settling after the 2020 Presidential election and the Jan 6th storming of the Capitol, some things are happening in Congress that are telling.

After Jan 6th there was a knee jerk reaction of several congressional leaders speaking out against the president, but as things cooled, some of the republican leadership crawled back to DJT. Primarily the minority leader Kevin McCarthy. He felt inspired to fly to Florida for a DJT meeting about how to get the majority back in 2022.

The votes in the Senate and in the House definitely indicate there is still a Trump caucus of die hard supporters. Josh Hawley, has yet to cast a Yay vote in the 117th Congress as of this writing. That’s even when there were only 3 Nays total. There are those in the Trump faithful who flew all the way to Wyoming to campaign against Liz Cheney. A ranking member of his own party. A trip where the sole purpose was to inform her constituents of what a bad republican she is and that she needs to face a primary challenge. Liz Chaney (Daughter of former VP Dick Chaney) is a very conservative Republican. She happened to vote her conscience and voted Yes to impeach DJT for inciting an insurrection. Her reward was a DJT ankle biting supporter coming to her state to threaten her re-election.

Here’s a telling point however. When a private vote was called in her caucus to determine if she should retain her leadership position, she won that vote very comfortably. If the Trump caucus had any real support, this vote would’ve been much different.

Another telling point is that Ted Cruz has been walking back a lot of his rhetoric lately. Trying to re-write his own history, but he’s a politician, so to be expected. However, we should not forget his participation in promoting the election fraud scheme. His buddy Josh Hawley is also trying to move on as if nothing happened. We shouldn’t forget the role either of them played in events leading to the Jan 6th riots.

Most recently, another hard line Trump support, Marjorie Taylor Greene, just got stripped of her committees for all her dangerous rhetoric before and during her campaign.

11 republicans crossed party lines and voted for the resolution to remove her from committees. Another sign that her extreme views and ties to the FAR right are not appreciated in the party.

Both parties seem to be less interested in the fringes as they prune their far reaching branches. AOC makes a lot of noise from the far left but she’s not getting much love from Speaker Pelosi either.

With regards to DJT and his influence, the issue is fear. Not fear of the man, rather the fear of the unknown. The republican leadership and other republican members of congress don’t really know what kind influence DJT does or does not have right now. They’re trying to straddle that fence while they look for signs for which way the political winds are blowing. The current signs are that they want DJT to move on. Maybe to a new reality TV show? Anything other than politics.

The fall of McCarthyism (Joseph not Kevin) wasn’t finished over night either. It took a few years before he faded off into the sunset from the political scene.

A similar fate is in the works for DJT. He will try to hold on to his influence over the republican party, but it seems that the majority of the republican party doesn’t want him around. It’s been said that the Trumplican island is sinking and shrinking for all those still hanging on. It will be interesting to see who sticks around too long and gets taken down in it’s wake.

Let’s revisit this 2 years from now and see how the 2022 mid terms played out.