As some Republican governors, and even some members of Congress, start to criticize federal agents killing citizens, and Trump looks for which of his lackeys to throw under the bus, I see signs of hope.
Not just that Trump is TACOing again, but that maybe this means the Republican party might be reassessing their crooked, maniacal leader and their very identity.
The cultish worship of Trump was the result of the Republican’s trajectory for some time now. They’re all about power.
Oh, they have pretended to have strong values … like family values. Remember that one? That got all the religious right fired up against LGBTQ+ and abortion rights. It helped them restrict abortion, taking power from women and putting it in the hands of conservative lawmakers.
But their collective shrugs over the Epstein files and Trump’s ties to the pedophilia scandal showed that value to be a sham.
When’s the last time we saw Republicans actually getting out in the street and protesting? Oh, I remember. The Tea Party. Fiscal responsibility. The deficit.
What a joke. The Republicans have talked a good game about fiscal responsibility, but Republican presidents have driven up the deficit more than Democratic ones. Trump may have enlisted Elon Musk to have fun with a chainsaw and oversee damaging federal cuts by a 19-year-old programmer nicknamed “Big Balls” and his pals. But in 2025, Trump still grew the deficit by $1 trillion, the fastest accumulation of debt outside the pandemic.
The other day, I was browsing our local Republican social media landscape, and I came across an interesting post from September by a conservative Facebook friend in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination:
“I think what has hit me hardest since Charlie Kirk’s assassination has been the amount of people that I know who messaged me, saying, ‘Charlie asked for this with his messaging.’
“This has confirmed that there’s a reason large groups of Americans don’t believe that there’s a 1st Amendment right to Free Speech.
“The Second thing that it solidified is how we are a divided nation and one side supports killing us for our opinions…”
And if the irony of that wasn’t clear enough, a friend weighed in with this comment:
“This case shows why the Second Amendment is essentially protecting the First.”
So, sure, Republicans believe in free speech, but only when it’s THEIR speech. They believe that they should have the right to bear arms. But not those protesting the government.
(These guys actually posted a meme that suggested 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse had a good reason to bring a gun to a protest, but ICU nurse Alex Pretti did not.)
I’ve been convinced that all the so-called beliefs of Republicans are just fashions they can change at a moment’s notice, should their cult leader tell them to believe something else.
It reminds me of a scene in the 2018 movie “Vice.”
A young Dick Cheney (played by Christian Bale) asked veteran politician Donald Rumsfeld (played by Steven Carell) what Republicans believe.
Rumsfeld paused, looked at him, and then laughed his head off. And kept on laughing.
The way this valueless party is playing out is no laughing matter as it turns our country into a police state.
But maybe that state truly is cracking at the seams. Those seams are Republicans who are finding something to believe in beyond power, standing up to Trump.
I know that not all Republicans are MAGA, and it’s those courageous conservative outsiders who can take down this corrupt administration and rebuild the party based on something else.
Real values.
The Epstein Files is a regular Bulletin column featuring Warren Epstein’s take on politics, food, the arts and whatever else is on his mind. There will always be one mention of President Donald Trump as a confirmation that yes, Trump is in The Epstein Files. As Bulletin board chair, Epstein does not accept pay for his writing here.