Columnist thinks the Republican Party's latest move is to put Trump up in the attic

Whether he's being put out to pasture, taken to a farm up-state, packed away in the attic, the last week has shown that the Republican Party is ignoring whatever power or control Donald Trump had over the past several years.

Writing for the New York Times, Charles Blow describes the former president as a kind of family patriarch past his prime.

"But, as the years passed, his power waned, his acuity dulled, his admonitions began to sound archaic," writes Blow. "The family reordered itself. So another man or a woman became the leader and the grandfather or uncle was demoted, without any formal proclamation but by familial inertia, to a kind of elder emeritus. The family still loves him and honors him, but they also regularly tune him out or ignore him. He was integral to the family’s journey but is now only incidental to its future."

While it certainly fits the bill, Trump has become more like a character in a Tennessee Williams play. "A Streetcar Named Desire's" Blanche DuBois, for example, who is obsessed with her looks, panicked about her aging body as she lives her life out as an insecure Southern belle who once had wealth and privilege. Or Alonso Quixano from Don Quixote, a nobleman who lost his mind to fight chivalric battles he invents in his mind.

After watching Trump's inability to move his supporters in Congress during the speaker vote, it has become clear that the lonely, old president who demands diners applaud when he comes into the Mar-a-Lago dining room, has become powerless.

Blow draws attention to Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), "a woman who once said that Trump was called by God to run for president and was 'anointed for that position,' rebuked Trump and McCarthy."

“Let’s work together," said Boebert. "Let’s stop with the campaign smears and tactics to get people to turn against us. Even having my favorite president call us and tell us we need to knock this off. I think it actually needs to be reversed: The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that ‘Sir, you do not have the votes, and it’s time to withdraw.’”

He recalls that at one point, Matt Gaetz (R-FL) nominated Trump for the speaker post. Blow describes it as almost a joke to mock the former president. Gaetz took to Twitter after Trump demanded he support McCarthy: “Supporting McCarthy is the worst human resources decision President Trump has ever made. Sad!” Six MAGA Republicans still refused to support McCarthy in the end.

Blow says it's just one loss after another at a time that the former president is supposed to be running for president. Instead, he's nothing more than an aging southerner who once "excited some admiration."

Read his full column in the New York Times.