Trump has crushed his GOP opponents and turned them into 'supplicants and toadies': columnist

In a column for the Daily Beast, conservative Matt Lewis cast a jaundiced eye on some of Donald Trump's most vociferous critics -- dating back to when they opposed his 2016 presidential nomination -- and noted that they have become some of his staunchest defenders even though the president has publically humiliated them.

Lewis got right to the point, writing, "Of all the Republican politicians, operatives, and commentators who have been emasculated by Donald Trump, the senators who returned there after he bested them in 2016 are the most obsequious," before adding, "This ignominious list of once-bold, and now house-trained, Republicans includes Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul. They’re broken in now, like an old pair of jeans with no shape of their own."

Recalling recent his story, Lewis noted, "On the campaign trail, Rand called Trump a 'delusional narcissist”'and a 'fake conservative,' and Trump mocked his height. Rubio mocked Trump’s small hand size and called Trump a 'con artist,' and Trump eviscerated 'Lil Marco.' Graham said Trump was a 'kook,' 'crazy,' and 'unfit for office,' and Trump gave out Graham’s personal cellphone number on national television. Cruz said Trump was a 'pathological liar,' a 'narcissist,' and a 'serial philanderer,' and Trump and basically called Cruz’s wife ugly—while accusing Cruz’s dad of being involved in the Kennedy assassination."

That was then and this is now, Lewis maintains, writing, "I could cite chapter and verse on all of these guys," before adding, "For whatever reason, the GOP’s leading hypocrites, the apple-polishing-est toadies, seem to be Trump’s vanquished primary opponents who returned to the U.S. Senate."

"I’m reminded of an episode of The Simpsons where Homer is forced to return to his old job at the Springfield nuclear power plant. When Mr. Burns’ receptionist finds out he is not a new applicant, he is made to crawl through a much smaller dog door that reads 'supplicants,'" he wrote before concluding, "It’s no easy task to rank Republican ass-kissers given how many Republicans have abandoned their principles to please him (see Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, et al.). Still, the 2016 candidates who lost to Trump—and then returned to the senate—appear to be the biggest brownnosers of them all."

You can read the whole piece here (subscription required).