A Carthaginian peace is the imposition of a very brutal "peace" achieved by completely crushing the enemy. The term derives from the peace imposed on Carthage by Rome.
-Wikipedia
Donald Trump and his minions had become “drunk” on their early electoral successes and the ease with which they had won over the regular Republican party. Remember the Rose Garden beer bash after the “boys” passed the now infamous “tax cut for their rich friends” --legislation that helped swell the early Trump tide? The same celebratory victory lap followed the Kavanaugh affair—albeit this time with champagne corks popping instead of beer bottle caps. As they whooped it up, the Trump effect seemed to be indelibly stamped upon the party—the surrender complete. The “Party of Lincoln” had been overtaken as in a corporate takeover, reminding all that it is also the “party of Hoover and Nixon and Trump.”
Trump still had scores to settle both within his new party and with Democratic upstarts. Deep within the Trumpublican party, its president was intent on purifying the breed by culling non-loyalists in the primaries and supporting those candidates who would owe their allegiance to him--distilling the brew using fear and loathing. Those who tied their fortunes to him feared his wrath just as much as those within his party who decided to go it alone. Trump convinced the Dumbublicans to pretend that he was on the ballot and that a vote for whomever was a vote for him. Candidates who chose not to make this Faustian bargain decided either not to run for reelection (see Flake, Corker, et al.) or faced being “primaried” by candidates recruited by Trump from a foul nest of reprobates. In all, there were 26 “pure” Republican retirements in 2018—most of whom feared being replaced or embarrassed by the Trump base in their reelection bids.
Trump thus brokered a “Carthaginian Peace” within his party. The P.T. Barnum of presidents satisfied his need to perform for his base who fulfilled the need for a ready supply of duped-again suckers. By creating a “season of rallies”---performance art for his hooting and howling dupes--- the disuniter-in-chief fluffed his crazed followers who responded predictably with violence. While his tour served mostly as a platform for his own grievances and hatreds, they also served as opportunities to gather chits that he would later wield to control the winners. Trump being Trump, he fashioned his effort as a "gift" to followers and sycophants who couldn't get enough of the race-baiting autocrat as he shamelessly announced his intention to take all the credit for those who won and not one tad of blame for the losses certain to come in the House races. Meanwhile, in the races for the deck-stacked Senate races, Trump would focus efforts to maintain the upper chamber in hopes the Senate would stave off the Mueller probe and possible impeachment. The plan was to solidify his support by creating a false narrative that suggested that the only route to success in his party was through him. It was the elective equivalent of his fishy campaign boast that only he could solve the nation’s problems—a sort of “sushi” generis bit of hyperbole that ignored the fact that as president he would also be the source of most of the nation’s problems.
As the midterms began in earnest, Trump had his party under thumb. By disposing of tepid or disloyal Republicans, he had delivered his Carthaginian peace to a party whose only choice was his way or the highway. The scorched earth policy that Trump waged on his party may be his biggest miscalculation. Here’s why.
There was an expectation that in an off-year midterm election that the party in power would lose seats in the house and senate. It happened to the best of them—Obama, Bush, Reagan, Clinton, well, you get the picture. In the modern era, the party in power gained seats in the midterm elections only twice, 1934 and 2002. Both times there was good reason. In Roosevelt’s midterm, the country was in the midst of a devastating and growing depression, In 2002, George W. Bush was facing the results of 9/11 while launching a retaliatory strike against al Qaeda in Afganistan. With factors like the economy, jobs, and relative peace in his quiver, Trump could have parlayed these as a hedge against losing control of Congress. Instead of working on building a coalition, Trump chose a sort of "if you break it you own it" bargain in which his owning it at any cost was the point. It was a choice that was dictated by the nature of Trump‘s personality. His victory in 2016 was an anomaly and had the earmarks of a fluke. No one, Trump included, expected it. Then, he won. Intent on validating the victory by asserting that he had done it alone, Trump relished his fight with the Republican Party as a political tack, dictated by a need to serve his own dark intentions. Why would anyone choose to represent white supremacists and racists unless that was the only base he could sustain? The Republicans who chose to leave the party or have disavowed their party’s president could help form a majority of Democrats and Independents to defeat him. Next election he will need even more help from Russians and the demographically challenged group of angry white men than he received this time. His campaign will be populated by the very deplorables noted by Hillary Clinton, for which she was wrongfully chastised.
To be fair, the Republican Party had been preparing the way for its own demise for years. In Mitch McConnell, they had chosen leadership that was unpatriotic and undemocratic. His disdain for Barack Obama, which impeded our first black president his right to lead, was tinged with bitterness that suggested racism and opened the doors of his party to white supremacists and the alt-right. Trump was a vessel for their “white man’s anger.” Each needed the other and in the end, will deserve each other, as this era will hopefully be remembered as an aberration. Before the Republican Party sets out to save its place as a major party, it had best work on saving its soul lost amid the bigotry of obstructing a duly elected president whose only fault lay in the color of his skin. For this, McConnell and the rest of Republican leadership deserve the ignominy of losing their power and their party. There will be no tears shed here for them.
For those who believed that Trump’s victory in 2016 only vanquished his Democratic rivals can now, after the Dems response in their midterm performance, appreciate the damage done to a willingly hijacked Republican Party. For Democrats, resistance and a refusal to surrender to Trump's attempted takeover is the only option. Their fight continues. The Mueller investigation seems poised to not only restore justice and unravel the mystery of the Russia-Trump connection, but to potentially disavow his fake victory rendering it pyrrhic.
What is left is the decision of the Republican Party to either accept the terms of surrender implicit in Trump’s Carthaginian peace offering or to throw the bums out. While the nation and the world have suffered under the weight of the Trump aberration, it is incumbent upon Republicans to weed out their own thugs, quislings, and opportunists. The upcoming election in 2020 may well be their last best chance of reclaiming their party and rescuing it from the scorched earth destruction imposed by the phony patriots hiding behind the bigotry and hate of small men. If they fail to succeed, their party may go the way of the Whigs and Bull Moose parties—and that may be just what it deserves.