The Reckoning Has Only Just Begun

Republicans once swore eternal loyalty. Now, they whisper escape. The cult is cracking, the faithful are fleeing, and Trump’s empire of fear is out of fuel.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Remember to follow him on Substack for more by clicking here. Michael is also racing to 500K followers on YouTube! Subscribe today for free here.

For more than a year now, I’ve said this would happen. I’ve said it on Political Beatdown, on my Mea Culpa podcast, on television, in print, and to anyone who would listen: the Republican Party would eventually begin to break from Donald Trump. Not out of moral courage, not out of sudden enlightenment, but out of self-preservation. Power, not principle, is the oxygen of politics, and even the most devout members of the Trump cult can only hold their breath for so long before survival instincts kick in.

What we’re watching now isn’t a revolution. It’s not even an act of rebellion. It’s a migration—a slow, cautious, self-interested drift away from a man whose political gravity is beginning to wane. Former Senator Jeff Flake, a rare Republican who found a conscience early enough to use it, put it perfectly in his Washington Post op-ed: “In politics, migrations rarely happen all at once. They start quietly; one or two members of a herd moving toward safer ground while the rest pretend not to notice.”

He’s right. The herd is stirring. And it’s not because anyone suddenly found their moral compass; it’s because the political weather is changing. Republican lawmakers are finally reading the room, and for once, the writing on the wall isn’t spelled M-A-G-A. The economy is shrinking, the tariffs are hitting red states the hardest, and millions of Americans—the same ones Trump promised to uplift—are watching their grocery bills rise while their SNAP benefits are slashed. Farmers in Iowa, manufacturers in Michigan, and truckers in Texas aren’t getting richer off these trade wars; they’re getting crushed.

So when someone like Rand Paul criticizes Trump’s tariff policies, or Marjorie Taylor Greene, of all people, publicly breaks from the president on an issue or two, it’s not courage. It’s calculation. They’re sticking a finger in the political wind and realizing that loyalty to Trump may soon cost them the only thing they truly care about: their seat.

But for every Republican inching toward daylight, there’s a Chip Roy screaming into Steve Bannon’s microphone, warning of a “bloodbath” if anyone dares question the dear leader. His language is pure panic—the sound of a man who knows the party’s fear-based messaging is losing its potency. Roy’s argument isn’t strategic; it’s survivalist. He’s not rallying the faithful. He’s begging the herd to stay put, to ignore the cliff’s edge just beyond the fog.

“We’ve got to start being aggressive,” Roy barked. “Republicans are sitting around making nice instead of coming through behind the President to save this country.”

Save the country? From what—affordable groceries? Affordable healthcare? Public transportation? Child care? This isn’t patriotism. It’s paranoia dressed up as populism, and the act is getting old. Americans are exhausted. They’re tired of slogans that promise greatness while delivering chaos and debt.

Flake, for all his faults, recognizes the truth that Trump loyalists refuse to admit: “Eventually, voters tire of performative anger and want competence.” That line cuts deep because it’s exactly what this era of Republican politics has abandoned: competence. Policy doesn’t matter anymore. Theatrics do. Trump doesn’t need to solve inflation or reform SNAP or stabilize global markets; he just needs to say he’s doing those things, and the Roys and Bannons of the world will carry the banner like it’s gospel.

But something is changing—not just in Washington, but in the country. The recent Democratic landslide in states like New York, California, Virginia, Mississippi, and New Jersey wasn’t a fluke. It was a referendum on Trumpism itself: a public rejection of the culture of cruelty, chaos, and corruption that defines the GOP and this administration.

That’s what scares the Roys. That’s what Flake is quietly celebrating. Because for all the bluster about “MAGA forever,” political gravity always wins. Leaders rise, they burn bright, and eventually, the light fades. When it does, the same people who once swore allegiance start finding new gods to worship.

Flake calls it “a re-realignment.” I call it what it is: a reckoning.

Soon, Republicans will have to choose: do they stay chained to Trump’s isolationist, tariff-driven, grievance-fueled agenda, or do they reclaim the conservative values they abandoned in pursuit of his approval? They can keep pretending that tariffs aren’t taxes, that food insecurity is “fiscal responsibility,” and that cutting SNAP somehow builds character—but voters aren’t buying it anymore.

The truth is, the GOP’s migration away from Trump isn’t about ideology; it’s about inertia. The movement will happen one by one—district by district, donor by donor—until suddenly, the stampede becomes impossible to ignore.

And when that day comes, the loyalists like Chip Roy will look around, realize the herd has left them behind, and call it betrayal. But it won’t be betrayal. It’ll be survival.

Republicans can cling to the cult or evolve into a party again. They can shout “bloodbath” all they want, but the only blood they’re spilling is their own political future.

So yes, Jeff Flake is right: the migration has begun. Slowly, quietly, and maybe even too late. But it’s happening. And when it’s over, the GOP will look up, dazed and confused, wondering how the man they built their empire around ended up standing alone in the dust.

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