He sets the stage.
He makes the demands.
Trump’s in charge, ladies and gentlemen of the Republican Party. Get in line, get out of the way, or you will get gone. You push back on his agenda, and you are gone.
U.S. Republican Rep Thomas Massie (KY-4) is the latest to learn this lesson too late. He could talk about “his principles” all day long, but what did he accomplish?
Nothing.
He went along with Speaker-designate Kevin McCarthy in January 2023. In exchange for Massie’s support, McCarthy gave him a coveted spot on the House Rules committee.
In May 2023, McCarthy was pushing through another porkulus spending debt-ceiling increase. Fiscal conservatives were clamoring for its failure to happen. It came before the must-pass House Rules Committee, where it squeaked by to the floor on a 7-6 vote. Thomas Massie, Mr. “National Debt Alarm Clock,” principled libertarian conservative, was the tie-breaking vote.
At that point, I realized that Massie was all talk and no walk. There were no principles he was willing to fight for if it meant losing a seat on a key committee or not being able to grandstand against President Trump.
The same President Trump had endorsed him in 2020, even though Massie had made him mad by calling for a voice vote on the COVID-19 pandemic spending. The same President Trump backed him in 2024, as well.
When 2025 rolled in, with Trump at the helm and Republicans running both chambers of Congress, Massie just threw a fit and stalled the Speakership vote. Instead of incumbent Speaker Mike Johnson, Massie nominated Tom Emmer. The Minnesota Congressman had withdrawn his name from consideration two years ago because he was too liberal, more liberal than Johnson!
And yet, “principled conservative libertarian,” Massie chose the liberal Minnesotan.
Make it make sense!
It doesn’t.
Massie was a grandstander, a virtue-signaling grifter throughout the Second Trump Administration. He voted against immigration enforcement. He voted against the spending reforms (and cuts!) in the Big Beautiful Bill.
Then he started bellyaching about Israel and the Epstein list.
Massie had long cast contrarian votes on bills and resolutions relating to Israel. There’s nothing wrong with voting for the will of one’s constituents when they clash with Trump.
Massie picked too many fights, though, and he lost. He angered the general conference by forcing votes. He set off Christian Zionists with his hostility to Israel. He then outraged Trump and his MAGA base by voting down the BBB, then blasted the President over the Epstein files and voted against the party’s main-line agenda.
Massie should have limited himself to two targets, and one of them should not have been Trump.
As Salem's Scott Jennings shared on a recent CNN roundtable, Trump has transformed himself into the consummate party boss. And not a moment too soon! The Republican Party has long struggled with unity and organization. An incumbent President often serves as the leader of the party, but the boss-like maneuvers that Trump has employed rival all of his previous Republican presidential colleagues. Bush I and II, Reagan, Ford, Nixon, and onwards into the past all showed more of a deferential attitude toward the GOP conference, oftentimes because Republicans were not in the majority to begin with. Playing along was essential in those days.
Trump has changed political dynamics, ensuring Republican majorities with sustained party discipline.
If you cross Trump, you'd better knock him out, step aside, or get ready to lose your seat.
By and large, this kind of policy and political discipline is refreshing. Republican voters have long had to tolerate campaign conservatives who moved in line with the Potomac two-step once in office. Voters didn’t realize the importance of holding incumbents accountable until the Tea Party movement, and even then, it was a hit-and-miss effort.
With Trump, bad incumbents are getting the heave-ho, and it’s all for the better.
Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy was always a moderate, and he showed his conciliatory (read: backstabbing) ways when he voted to convict Trump. That kind of wishy-washy failure has no place in the larger movement.
Sure, some will complain that Trump is turning the GOP into a Trump-Only cult. The truth is that some Republicans in both chambers have voted against the President, even criticized him openly, and yet Trump doesn’t trash them or force them out. Consider U.S. Republican Rep. David Valadao (CA-22) and U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME). Both of these moderate-to-liberal RINOs are popular in their respective Democrat-majority constituencies. They have to lean to the left to scoop up enough votes.
Collins and Valadao don’t showcase their resistance to Trump, though. They just disagree with him, vote against the party on some bills, but they support the GOP leadership across the board, which enables the majority of conservative priorities to pass.
Trump is bossing out the RINOs, the sellouts, the grifters, the bad Republicans in deep-red districts who insist on selling out and undermining the larger cause. The Republican conference needed this kind of cleaning out for a long time, and I am grateful.
Of course, Trump, as the boss, has had some misses. He bombed during Election 2022, when all of his US Senate nominees challenging open seats or Democratic incumbents exploded. This year in California, his endorsement may frustrate two Republicans from getting into the top two.
Nevertheless, Trump’s endorsement misfires are getting rarer with each election cycle, and with Election 2026, we have witnessed TWO RINOs get the boot, with clear assurances that stronger Republicans will take their place. We can look back at 2010 and 2012, when the Tea Party Movement was stretching its legs and learning to flap its wings. There were more devastating misses, like the US Senate races in Delaware and Alaska, and then bigger US Senate failures in Missouri and Indiana in 2012.
Republicans, following Trump’s more media-savvy messaging, have learned to knock out the RINOs but maintain a more mainstream message. They win the independents and some of the disaffected Democrats. State your MAGA principles, but focus on the bread-and-butter issues, and you win more elections.
Trump the Boss is calculating with long-term wins in mind, not just the next election cycle. It’s about principled victory through pragmatic means, ensuring that liberal Republicans, feckless consultants, and retired GOP brass keep their mouths shut or go away.
Trump the Boss is also finishing off the left-leaning podcasters, pundits, Woke Right wrecks who have spent more time targeting Jews and Israel rather than focusing on the needs of America and Americans. Corporate media did its best to prop up anti-Trump wannabe America First candidates, and they have all crashed and burned.
Boss Trump’s current coalition is managing internal and external opposition, but he’s trouncing the dying corporate media, decaying academia, and fussy big business interests trying to get cheap labor. Trump has maintained a ready, steady hand of leadership, pushing his agenda through.
His aggressive stance has taught Republicans how to fight, or has forced them to fight, or has forced them out because they fight him or won't fight at all. That's what a good boss should do: Maintain the well-being of the party, ensure that the mission is accomplished, and provide good standing for everyone so that they're all getting the job done.
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