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OPINION
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Why Are Deep Red State Republican Senators So Often Squishes?

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
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AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

It was no shock when Senator Mike Rounds of one of the Dakotas – I don’t know or care which one, but they’re both supposedly deep red – went on a Sunday morning TV show, which is strike one, and announced that he thinks Christopher Wray is a great guy. Christopher Wray is not a great guy. He’s a deep-state flunky who has turned law enforcement against decent American patriots like us in the service of the Democrats. He shouldn’t finish out his term at the FBI; he should finish out his term at Leavenworth. What the hell is this crap from a supposedly conservative Republican senator? Rounds is so tone-deaf he couldn’t be autotuned into coherence. And the fact that he’s from a super red state makes it even worse. We need to ask ourselves the question – and answer it – about why the hell the red states so often seem to elect the biggest squish sissies in the Republican caucus.

You see this all the time. We got John Cornyn, who actually pushed a gun control bill with the Democrats because of Muh Bipartisanship or some such nonsense. He’s from Texas! We know Texas can do better – they have Ted Cruz! We got James Lankford, who gave the Democrats a talking point they simply will not shut up about by capitulating on immigration. This guy is from Oklahoma! There’s Bill Cassidy from Louisiana and Thom Tillis from one of the Carolinas. Those are not blue states. And now it appears that Utah has replaced Mitt Romney with a more ethnic Mitt Romney clone, though every single person on earth is more ethnic than Mitt Romney. 

There are rational explanations for some soft Republicans. Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski is from a state with a bizarre electoral system that lets her manipulate the elections. I don’t have a beef with Maine’s Susan Collins because she’s from a blue state, and she’s never pretended to be a conservative. But what the hell is up with these other ones? These guys are from red states. These guys should be savages. They should be animals. They should be chewing up commies and spitting out their crushed bones.

But no. No, they harken to the institutions. They care what the Washington Post thinks. They are all about the norms that haven’t existed since the Dems used them on us as a suppository.

Instead of fighting like men, they act like a bunch of invertebrate sissies. “Oh no, Donald Trump actually supports nominating people loyal to the vision he expressed on the campaign trail and that the American people voted for! Some of them don’t like the status quo! Some of them want to change things! Some of them are aggressively heterosexual! Oh my gosh, the scumbag bureaucrats and deep-state parasites who persecuted Republicans for the last decade might just be held to account! Well, we can’t have any of that. What about the norms? What about the institutions? What about my campaign donations?”

Here’s the problem with Republicans from deep red states. Deep red state Republican parties are, by necessity, big tents. They are not just conservatives. They also include little weasels who would be Democrats if they were anywhere else. The fact is that if you want to be elected dog catcher in East Dakota or Idaho or someplace like that, you have to be part of the GOP. So, anybody who wants to get elected to anything is pretty much going to join the GOP. But that doesn’t mean they’re conservative. And in many cases, they’re not conservative at all. 

We see this again and again. Now, it’s not as bad as it used to be. We’ve gotten rid of a lot of these tools. But the dynamic is still there. You can be a moderate Republican in a state like Texas, believe it or not. They pretend to be right-wing at election time, and then once they get established, out comes the communism. They get in there, gum up the works, and collaborate with Democrats to do things like block school choice. It becomes a giant hassle to remove them. Oh, it’s possible. It can happen. Texas conservatives are purifying the party right now at the state level. You’ll probably see Texas go for school choice next year. But it took several election cycles to get rid of these imposters.

What they’ve learned is that they can be liberal without accountability. If you’re never held to account, you’ll never learn to behave. Many of them are well-established in office. The state parties are always full of insiders, and that’s who these legislators suck up to. They have the money and the party structure, but mostly they have a Republican voter base that’s just not paying attention. They have a Republican voter base that’s not saying, “Hey, wait a minute, what the hell are you doing undermining the president we just elected?” If the voters refuse to act, and if the voters refuse to hold these geeks accountable at election time, then they’re never going to learn. 

We must teach them. A politician’s proper state is one of abject terror of the electorate. They should be petrified of crossing the line and alienating us, but that requires that we voters pay attention. In red states, the voters are not doing that, and these spineless weenies are the result.

Right now, John Cornyn has no primary opponent for 2026. But he should have one. He should have a strong one, like Ken Paxton, who is not weak, not spineless, and not eager to do things that please liberals rather than satisfy conservative patriots. But just getting the voters angry isn’t enough. Again, these guys are entrenched, like ticks, and they’ve got a lot of money and institutional support. Yet, there’s another factor at play this time.

There’s Donald Trump this time, and he has nothing to lose. If he decides to pay attention to the people who deprive him of the nominees he needs to complete his agenda and keep his promises, those politicians will have a real problem. Trump needs to have a sit down with John Cornyn, Mike Rounds, and the rest of these weebles. He must promise them that if they cross him, he will make them his hobby. He will focus his attention on their primary races by lifting up solid conservative candidates to oppose them. And you know what? Donald Trump coming to Dallas, Houston, and other places in Texas may allow us to leverage Cornyn out of his sinecure.

Now, it might not work. But it will cause them pain. A lot of pain. And that’s something. They need to suffer if they cross us. Again, politicians should be treated like garbage. They work for us, not vice versa, and if they can’t cut it, they need to be discarded like trash. And you voters in red states need to take an interest in your own politicians. Do better. It’s ridiculous that you can be so deeply red and still elect hacks who play footsies with the blue.

Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get the newest volume in the Kelly Turnbull People’s Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, the bestselling Amazon #1 Military Thriller, Overlord! And get his new novel about terrorism in America, The Attack!

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