Former GOP strategist Rick Wilson described a major shortcoming that Republicans have missed — and have been ignoring — since President Donald Trump entered the White House.
The co-founder of The Lincoln Project wrote in his Substack on Monday how Sen. Bill Cassidy's (R-LA) "original sin" against Trump in his vote to impeach the president during his first administration was what drove Trump's revenge campaign to unseat Cassidy in his race for re-election.
"Because here’s what Cassidy did next, and this is the part that elevates the story from tragedy to Trumpian farce," Wilson wrote. "Having committed the unforgivable, he spent the next several years frantically trying to be forgiven. He didn’t double down on the principle. He didn’t go full Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger and welcome political martyrdom in the name of principle."
"He negotiated. He tried to split the difference with a movement that does not do nuance, does not do partial credit, does not grade on a curve," Wilson wrote.
Despite Cassidy's best efforts, it did not work in his favor, Wilson explained. The former physician even voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead Health and Human Services as a way to signal loyalty to Trump, "apparently believing this act of submission would buy him a permission slip back into the tribe."
"It bought him nothing. It was always going to buy him nothing. That is the part Cassidy and the entire cowering remnant of the institutional GOP cannot, will not, are constitutionally incapable of internalizing," Wilson wrote.
"There is no appeasement price that satisfies Trump’s hunger," Wilson wrote. "The bill is never paid, because the debt isn’t financial; it’s a loyalty oath sworn in blood, and there are no installment plans. You cannot impeach the man and then confirm his cabinet and net out even. The ledger doesn’t work that way. The ledger only records the betrayal."
Republicans have missed this signal from Trump, he explained.
"This is the GOP’s terminal blind spot, and it’s worth naming precisely: they keep believing they can transact a deal with Trump, that somehow he won’t turn on them if they ever betray the slightest tendency to principle," Wilson wrote.
"They think there’s a deal in there somewhere, a position, a vote, a sufficiently groveling Fox hit that squares the account. There is not, and will never be," he added.
