Brief Notes On the Price of Political Pandering July 2021

It's become clear in 2021 that the Republican Party still kneels and begs for table scraps at the foot of the eternal Shitgibbon known as trump.

As the near-unstoppable cycle of election campaigning kicks up for 2022, a number of high-profile Republican candidates at the state and Congressional level have spent a lot of effort playing to trump's unstable world-views and conspiracy rants. Noticeable among these sycophants is George P. Bush, son of... one of the Bush brothers, hold on let me check the Wikipedia biography oh yes it's JEB! - who is entering the political stage by running for state-level office in Texas. Specifically for State Attorney General, running as a challenger against the incumbent Ken Paxton.

Normally, intraparty challenges are rare outside of the purity-test extremists taking their shot at the office-holder they deem insufficiently RINO. It's kind of hard to paint Paxton as a RINO given all the crazy-ass stuff he's done as AG... and that's just the legal stuff. Another big reason for Bush's challenge is that Paxton is currently indicted on corruption and securities fraud charges, something that ought to have driven an honest crook to resign for the good of the party. It's just with this modern Republican Party, corruption charges is now a goddamned badge of honor to these guys.

In order to win, George P. has spent his early days campaigning even further to the right than Paxton, going so far as to openly worship at the foot of trump (party kingmaker) himself. All of this in spite of the open contempt the Bush family itself has towards trump, whom they view as destroying a Republican Party they built and once dominated themselves.

But hey, one of the things about the Bushes, if you ever watched them from Bush the Elder from the 1960s on through to Bush the Lesser in the 2000s to weak Fredo uh Jeb! the Exclamation Point: A Bush running for office will pander and debase themselves as much as needed to win that office.

So where did all of George P.'s love affair for trump lead him?

trump still went with the openly (allegedlys) corrupt Paxton. Why not? trump must figure Paxton will cut him into Paxton's piece of the action...

Ergo, to this bit of schadenfreude:

Donald Trump just endorsed incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) over the GOP primary challenger, George P. Bush—who sold out his own family to kiss Trump’s ass. No hero in this tale, just a reminder that there’s no honor among thieves—and a deal with the devil can backfire. https://t.co/sRUg0qQpg4

— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) July 27, 2021

I wonder what George P. will do now. Probably crawl back to the Bush Family Compound and convene a session with their current elders to decide the next step of revenge against Paxton. I wonder how many judges in line to handle Paxton's indictments still owe a favor or three to the Bushes...