The Republican Party is About to Crash and Burn on Donald Trump's Watch

A former B-movie actor by the name of Ronald Wilson Reagan, was sworn in publicly as President of the United States, for the second time, on January 21, 1985. The actual ceremony was moved inside to the US Capitol Rotunda, because of the extremely cold temperatures in Washington, DC, on that day.

The thermometer was predicted to dip to -4 degrees. The usual inaugural parade down Constitution Avenue was cancelled, as well, because of the anticipated cold.

Despite the arctic air, could that frigid day, forty-one years ago, somehow stand as the zenith of the Republican Party in the United States of America?

The Gipper went on to become one of the most revered figures in GOP politics. A man known for neither his intellect or for any great accomplishments in office, Ronald W. Reagan somehow remains a treasured and beloved cultural icon in conservative politics.

Reagan’s calm confident manner and reassuring, if overly smug smile, was exactly what the GOP of that day, needed in the White House. Long gone was the gloom of the Jimmy Carter presidency. Not only was Reagan’s name subsequently added to the second largest federal office building in Washington DC [a construction product] becoming known as the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

The address officially is 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The nearby, just across the river, National Airport was forcibly renamed – against the objections of the Washington DC city council, the Arlington County Board in Virginia, DCs Congressional Delegate at the time, the honorable Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton [D-DC] - As well as other regional politicians.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority also vigorously opposed the renaming of the airport, as this would mandate a expensive change of the name of the attached metro station which abuts the grounds. Reagan National Airport became the new official moniker of the airport in February 1998, a stunning example of the power of the Republican Party in Washington DC and across America in those years.

What does the post-death reverence of Ronald Reagan symbolizes?

It is an example of a congress, and a political party, that functions independently of the executive branch. George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama and even Donald Trump during his first term, never enjoyed a Congress that served as a slick rubber stamp, for whatever it is they wanted to accomplish.

When the federal government is functioning properly in Washington, DC. The congressional representatives of either party are allowed to have ideas independent of the White House.

When the Republican Party set about renaming everything in Washington DC that they could attach Ronald Reagan’s name to. The guidance about such matters came from congressional offices on Capitol Hill; they didn’t come from the White House in the form of outrageous demands.

The House of Representatives under the stewardship, if one can call it that, of [R] Mike Johnson has become a feckless joke. [R] John Thune, in the Senate, is equally without a voice, it seems. Donald Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the hallowed East Wing of the White House, comically damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflection Pool, placed his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts [since removed] accepted a $400 million dollar second-hand 747 airliner from the country of Quatar that now serves – in some capacity as Air Force One – and has plundered and grifted his way through the Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution, without a single shout out of “Hey Donald, what the hell are you doing?” from the Republican leadership in this country.

Donald J. Trump is their man in the White House, and both Johnson and Thune are obviously afraid of him because they are exerting no leadership qualities whatsoever. What Trump wants he gets, no matter how outside of protocol or normal presidential behavior his demands are.

The Trump White House is a disaster of epic proportions. The Founding Fathers couldn’t have possibly ever imagined what one unprincipled man could do to their new country. Not only is the world looking on in absolute horror, but believe it or not, so is the electorate.

Trump’s no-rails presidency is in no way a sign of strength or entrenchment. Polling has shown he’s lost support amongst independents, women, college-age voters, and his maybe one-time-only realignment with Hispanics has been blown to shreds because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement police have been turned to a pseudo state police outfit that targets brown people.

Trump’s own MAGA base is beginning to see him for the flawed and degenerate excuse of a president that he has always been. When your own base begins to turn against you, there is no upside left.

The November 2026 midterms are likely going to be a bloodbath with the Republican Party taking a beating in both houses of Congress, and with the Democrats gaining control of at least the House of Representatives.

At that point, Donald Trump’s presidency will be over. If the Republicans also lose the Senate in the midterms, that will stand as a complete and undeniable repudiation of current Republican politics.

This wholesale rejection of one of America’s two major political parties could be terminal. Surely that’s not what an authoritarian wannabe like Trump has in mind.

What’s the upside for the GOP? Where are the big names to reestablish a beach head upon the body politic. Desantis? Rubio? JD Vance? Hegseth?

They are all too attached in some way to Donald Trump and MAGA politics.

Weird or cranky outsiders such as Tucker Carlson and Vivek Ramaswamy are longshots at best.

Where is the strong voice on the Republican side of the aisle, that can honorably and truthfully state that they stand against the excesses and the abuses of the Trump White House, and against MAGA politics right now, before the midterms?

Such a person does not exist. And that’s the problem.

Donald Trump never allowed anyone to share the Republican spotlight with him, and so there’s no one available to pass the baton forward to. There’s no one in his administration that he hasn’t shown a complete willingness to undermine when it suited him, and there’s no one in Congress who dared raise their head in opposition to anything he was speaking about.

It was Trump’s voice coming through, or there was no voice at all. In the Trump House of Worship, even the timid mice dare not squeak.

This is how thoroughly degraded the Republicans have become in the Trump era. A once powerful party has lost its independent voice.

The party of Abraham Lincoln, no less.

The GOP is like that big hot air balloon in the sky far above the county fair. Its colors are bright and bold, and highly-visible against the blue background. But there’s a rip in the fabric, its leaking air, and the burner tank is exhausted of fuel.

So now the Republican balloon might as well be a heavy lead weight, falling straight down through the clouds with nothing left to stop it.

Even the mice who scamper along in the shadows at the White House, underfoot, and seemingly always able to evade capture, understand that the Trump White House is a place where only losers hang-out and try to earn a living.

If only the members of the Grand Old Party where as sharp as these mob mice. Just because they’re low-life criminals, it doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing. There are signs, bad signs in Republican politics, at the moment.

Donald Trump is leading the GOP down a path to total destruction. If wise voices don’t find the courage to speak up in defense of the party’s place in American politics, it may soon be too late to save it.

This is only a brief taste of what’s on the way from MADDOX NEWS in the weeks and months ahead. Be sure to spread the word from and family, alike. Your help in getting this publication to grow will be much appreciated.