Hey, here's a thing. Donald Trump, the United States President, aged 80, managed yet again to go full North Korea "Glorious Leader" and win his golf club's championship for the 43rd straight time. Our full-time golf pro and part-time president tweeted: "The Winning Shot in the Bedminster Club Championship! ... so honored... I’m given very little time to practice, because I’m focused on many other things. It’s called TALENT, and I have it, and they don’t!”
An adult tweeted that. Really.
But now other adults can really respond that while Trump may still wield absolute power at his miniature rules golf course, he no longer has such power in and around Washington, where the most macro of worlds pushes back. And now, that pushback is coming as much from GOP Senators as anywhere else.
Not a single word in this column exists to heap unearned praise on Republican lawmakers. Not one. But it would be irresponsible and inaccurate not to note that there has been a shift in the political force in Washington, one that people can see and feel, and that shift has been "away" from Trump and "toward" a broader, more shared outlook on the use of political power at the federal level. It would also be irresponsible not to respond with a nod and mumble, "good." Not great, not wonderful, not finally, just "good."
Oh, and it doesn't hurt that the GOP remains down a vote, given Mitch McConnell remains "out" enough as to be unavailable, though not so "out" as to be replaced in Kentucky.
But the shift has been real anyway and has been happening over the last two months as the Senate stood firm while Trump rage-tweeted over the "SAVE Act" as he contemplated the upcoming November elections. Some Republicans chose to save their power if soon to be in the minority with the filibuster intact, rather than give it up now, all to possibly save Trump a much tougher last two years (assuming Trump actually adheres to the two-term rule, which we assume solely for this column's purposes, but not in real life).
You are right to be cynical in every way and yell back, "So what! They're awful." Fine. Yes. They are. We good? But do not doubt that the power shift of the last two months didn't vastly accelerate last week, to wit:
Those Sunday shows remain relevant despite it all as we saw one of the smartest U.S. senators in existence do a Cajon shuffle onto the set of Meet the Press to play abjectly stupid and yet be right in spite of himself. Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana addressed that dadgum Trump slush fund. Kennedy said he "would not provide the Trump administration with a 'blank check' for the proposed “anti-weaponization” fund and that rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, should not be allowed to benefit from it," later noting the issue is too emotional.
Except, actually, not really. The issue is one of right and wrong, but Foghorn-Leghorn is in the general vicinity of being right enough, and that's not the point anyway. The point is that Trump really, really wants his slush fund. It's important to send a message to his inchoate private army so they know if they fight for him in the future, they won't just be pardoned but also handsomely paid. And despite its incredible importance to Trump, Kennedy remains unmoved.
Good. Not great. Just good. Want more? You're gonna get it anyway. May as well...
There is Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who doesn't give a lame duck that Trump is huffing and puffing about blowing the Senate down if he doesn't get Todd Blanche confirmed with that slush fund again (Must be really important. Puzzling.) It was only for a short time, but Cornyn threatened to block Blanche's confirmation as Attorney General unless the Justice Department nullifies that $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and even limit the scope of green-flagging Trump from filing the most laughably corrupt tax returns in history. On Monday, he backed down — claiming he'd got what he wanted. But for a few days, he'd stood up to Trump.
More? How about it coming from leadership now. As reported by this website:
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has grown increasingly testy as he explains to reporters he cannot "wave a magic wand" and create the votes needed to pass the SAVE America Act, a non-citizen voting ban that critics warn is both redundant and dystopian.
Wow. Testy? We feel it, impossible to ignore, actually. Moreover, not only is Thune telling the White House that he cannot wave a magic wand, one detects a sly message left wholly unsaid: "And I don't wanna wave that wand anyway, because maybe I DO have that magic, just not here, not now, not for you." Maybe. Good. Not great, just good.
See where we're going? It goes all the way down to criticism over the dadgum... that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool and the vandalism that wasn't. We all know that D.C. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro dropped charges against U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn, accused of vandalizing the pool. Ironically, this brings us right back to one of the smartest men in the U.S. Senate playing stupid again. Sen. Kennedy said:
"Well, the whole thing is a multiple vehicle pile-up. Let me start with the president. [The] president says it was caused by vandals. I don't know whether he really believes that, or it's part of his political messaging, or he's just thinking out loud."
He went on to note:
"Now, the stakes are a lot higher for U.S. Attorney Pirro. You can't lie to a federal judge. If she can't prove her case, she was right to pull back. Because if you fool around with a federal judge, you will find out."
Look, don't be fooled because despite the drawling Louisiana act, Sen. Foghorn-Leghorn is smart AF. That intelligence is now sending a message Trump can't ignore. Kennedy basically just accused Trump of living in a second world, one in which the truth is whatever Trump says it is — that world may well be real to Donald Trump, but it's not real enough in front of a federal judge... or an American voter.
That's what this all gets down to. Republican Senators know that they will have to face American voters soon enough, and voters of every color, ultra-violet to infra-red, are furious. Most of that fury is directed at any whiff of incumbency, any taint of status quo, any narrow glimpse of serving a billionaire-first agenda, by anyone, of any party. But it's really bearing down on the guys pictured alongside Trump, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, the entire rat-pack, or just pack of rats.
So, yes — any power reclaimed by Republican Senators is primarily driven by self-interest, a feral survival instinct, little more; and yet some of it has to be associated with the fact that none of them see Trump as powerful enough to keep their mouths shut any longer. Good. It is good practice.
It might come in handy this fall. If Trump wants to send troops out to monitor elections, or to snatch and grab votes from local officials, one wants GOP Senators more comfortable with pushing back and criticizing such action; it actually does matter. Trump certainly wants to wield unlimited power, but he, too, has a survival instinct premised on pulling back right at the edges of the frontlines, across which all the political support he needs dissolves.
Yes. Yes. The cynics have a case — they are right in many ways. We have heard all this before.
But not all of it. Consider: What if one saw the opposite, the GOP Senate coalescing around "our president," throwing out the filibuster, allowing the slush fund to go through, ushering in the Save Act that exists to destroy liberal votes. We have seen that before, too. Take yourself back to the first few months after Trump took office and recall the damage done by a wholly-owned subsidiary on Capitol Hill, Trump mowing over Senators like they were merely other golfers at his club, winning that championship, all that talent unleashed on a quivering GOP Senate.
Whatever that was and whatever this is, this isn't that.
Good.
Jason Miciak is a Rawstory columnist, former editor of Occupy Democrats, author, political consultant, attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow on Bluesky, and he can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com