I'm not sure how many ways we can keep pointing out that the Republican Party is no longer bound by any ideology other than dismissing all other American voices as illegitimate—that, essentially, Republicanism should govern America as a one-party state and that if that requires either propaganda efforts tailored to delegitimizing other government functions or simply snipping out parts of the Constitution they don't like, say the bits about Supreme Court nominations, that's what they'll do.
But we'll keep doing it, at least until the party can cobble together five or six decent people to resist it from their own side of the aisle. So far, it's not happening.
When President Obama relied heavily on executive orders to push through policies that had no chance in Congress, Republicans called him a dictator who abused his power and disregarded the Constitution. They even took him to court.
They did indeed. And they railed about czars, and Fox News devoted eight full and increasingly incoherent and foaming years to declaring that President Not-Republican was both weak and ineffectual and a power-grabbing tyrant destroying our great American society with his malevolent presidential pen. And then the new guy walked in and it all vanished into thin air.
Now President Trump, at the start of his tenure, is relying heavily on executive actions not just to reverse Obama administration initiatives, but to enact new federal policies covering immigration, health care and other areas in ways that could be seen more as the province of the House and Senate. And he is doing that with clear Republican majorities in Congress.
So, lo and behold, it's bullshitting time.
“We’ve never been against executive action,” said Ashlee Strong, a spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan, now the House speaker. “We’re against overreaching, illegal action.”
While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in the meantime, dabs his eyes with a handkerchief at the deplorability of the other party potentially delaying—let us pause here to truly appreciate the horror—presidential nominations. For example, to the Supreme Court.
We can sit here and tsk-tsk all we like about "hypocrisy" or "cravenness" or the gargantuan dunes of bullshit that have risen so far over the political landscape as to cause the entire pundit class to look at you with amusement if you so much as suggest that maybe consolidating your political power by brazenly lying to the American public about basic facts might be, just might be, something we ought to frown upon—but we've been there, and done that.
So let's instead use the point to reiterate the deeper message that the Republican Party capable of giving us a Donald Trump has for America. Actions Republicans take are legitimate, regardless of ideology, truthfulness, or laws against them; Actions any government official, elected or not, may take that run afoul of a Republican are illegitimate regardless of ideology, truthfulness, or laws supporting them. It is that simple. Republicanism no longer bases itself on conservatism, and is flexible enough to both produce autopsy reports demanding party inclusivity and executive memorandums granting the demands of white supremacists. Republicanism was not always a reflexively anti-scientific movement; it treats new knowledge with rank distrust now precisely because those measured facts have so often challenged party proclamations.
From Paul Ryan to Mitch McConnell, the only remaining principle remains the simplest one to follow; the party position is whatever will grant the party more power on any given day. Whether it was the party's position the day before or will remain the party's position in a year is utterly beside the point.