commentary
With a blue wave on the horizon, Republicans are turning on each other — and it’s getting ugly
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President Donald Trump on the South Lawn of the White House, Sept. 26, 2026. (Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images)
On Wednesday night, for the second time in a week, Donald Trump voiced his admiration for a supporter who punched out a heckler at one of his rallies. Last week it was a woman. This time around it was a man. “The guy stood up and he got whacked,” Trump exclaimed with delight.
Last week he mocked a woman for her appearance and called her scum after she showed up at a rally wearing a T-shirt that read “Release the Epstein Files.” Two men in the audience shoved her, and one punched her. Both pulled her hair as the crowd shouted, “USA! USA!” The man who had punched her exchanged high-fives with friends. Police removed the woman and did not charge those who attacked her.
A journalism mentor of mine once said, “It isn’t who’s telling the tale that matters, unless that’s the tale you’re telling.” Well, that’s always the case for Trump: He’s always telling his own tale, and he never wants you to forget it. It’s all about him, along with the sideshow of cultists who will hurt others and debase themselves to please him.
His latest tale is one heard many times. It’s a story about a kingdom profiting from another kingdom’s mistake and using the profits to fuel the mistake the first country made. It’s a story of subjugation.
This is the continuing story not of Bungalow Bill but of Don the Con, who really is “the all American bullet-headed Saxon mother’s son.” While Trump enjoys watching Americans punch each other out and his fans cheer the results, Russia is profiting from the war Trump started while supplying military intelligence to the enemy he created. It’s an effective way for the Russians to keep funding their war in Ukraine. You can almost hear Vladimir Putin talking to Trump in a manner something like a conversation in “Lord of the Flies” between Jack Merridew and Roger, on the topic of how great it will be to kill the “piggies.” Just look it up.
Unfortunately, there’s no equivalent to noble Ralph and his conch shell anywhere on the planet, though many Democrats act like pretenders to that role. Well, somebody better step up fast. For a country that so often pretends to be the underdog defending democracy, right now the U.S. seems more like an autocracy defending its hegemony over the rest of the world. You know, the bully who started the fight and then stands there applauding the effort.
Fortunately, it finally appears that enough people may be ready to stand up to the bully in the upcoming midterm elections. If there is a Ralph available in the United States, maybe we’ll see that person emerge in the aftermath.
That thought has Trump and his minions up all night pointing fingers at one another, cursing and screaming accusations. or breaking down like toddlers who’ve lost their pacifiers. Such is Republican politics in 2026.
Over the past week, Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Ohio, has run a campaign ad that tries to score political points off the sexual abuse that his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, allegedly suffered at the hands of her stepfather as a child.
Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized Ramaswamy, including outgoing GOP Gov. Mike DeWine. The editorial board of the Columbus Dispatch promptly endorsed Acton, calling Ramaswamy’s attack ads reckless and disqualifying. Republican Sen. Jon Husted, in the middle of his own difficult campaign against former Sen. Sherrod Brown, called the ad disgusting.
Trump has urged Vivek Ramaswamy to keep running his attack ad, claiming that it hit “pay dirt.” But the president would rather talk about how much he enjoys looking at Sen. Jon Husted’s rear end.
Vice President JD Vance, on the other hand, announced that he was “disgusted” by Republicans who pushed back on the ad. Politics is a tough business. Trump also urged Ramaswamy to keep running the ad, claiming that it hit “pay dirt.” For the second time in a week, Trump talked about how much he enjoys looking at Husted’s rear end. “I looked at his ass, and then I looked at his legs,” the president told us. “I said, ‘His ass, s**t, it’s like — it’s like a pile of muscle.’ Then I looked at his legs, and I said, ‘Man, his feet are big.’ Then I looked at his shoulders, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and it actually hurt my hand. He’s like a piece of steel.”
OK. There’s no appropriate “Lord of the Flies” analogy for that unexpected behavior, although Caligula might suffice.
Midterm ads for Democrats have struck a decidedly different tone. In Texas, James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, is pushing a cinematic TV spot that embraces hope. It’s a powerful closer, well-edited, well-written and carefully produced. It stands in stark contrast to the fear-mongering of Ramaswamy and the Republicans.
In Mississippi, Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom is making his way across the state in a taco truck, giving away free food and talking with voters. In his challenge to incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, Colom has gained enough attention that Democrats are daring to imagine they might stand a chance with an African-American candidate in the Deep South.
Colom’s recent ad is a 30-second comedic tour-de-force in which voters call out Hyde-Smith for advising her constituents to “get another protein” if they think beef prices are too high. “Get another protein? I’d rather get another senator,” a variety of voters exclaim, with a mixture of humor and profanity.
If Colom succeeds, it may well be because of that ad. It reminds me of the “Where’s the Senator?” ads that Mitch McConnell used in Kentucky back in 1984 to dethrone Democratic Sen. Walter “Dee” Huddleston.
Whether or not Colom wins is beside the point. The point is that Democrats have finally found something approaching a message: They’re against corruption. Along with the message of hope projected by Talarico, they may have stumbled onto something more palatable than “We’re not him.”
That’s precisely what scares Trump the most. He’s being removed from the conversation now that the Democrats have discovered that they must connect with local voters on issues that matter to them. Apparently, they’re finally learning to listen.
Trump and the Republicans can only pray that the Democrats are enjoying a moment of premature euphoria, and that their hubris will be destroyed on Nov. 4 after the election results come pouring in. “If you stop counting the votes,” as Trump told us in 2020, there won’t be a change of power. But members of both parties now show signs of believing that the Trump magic is gone and that nothing can stop the “blue tsunami” — not even vote-count shenanigans or declaring martial law and snatching the ballot boxes. Of course the Democrats could still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They’re very good at that.
What recent activity on the campaign trail tells us is that the poison of Trump and his choirboys is spreading even as Trump himself is losing influence. One shudders to think that there are worse possibilities than him out there, but given the way he’s liberated the darkest tendencies among his followers, as exhibited by Ramaswamy, there can be little doubt that’s the case.
The humbling coda to this narrative is that no British sailor will arrive in the nick of time to save us from our “Lord of the Flies” existence. We have to do it ourselves.
No British sailor will arrive in the nick of time to save us from our “Lord of the Flies” existence. We have to do it ourselves. And it won’t be over when the polls close.
While it’s tempting to crack a smile watching the Trump regime dissolve into bitter tears of greed and anger, it should be noted that this process is only beginning. It definitely won’t be over when the polls close. It might not be over until after the new Congress is seated in January, if then.
Trump has tried his best to destroy innate goodness, spirituality, quiet insight, intellect, rationality and science through his most devoted soldiers. Vance, Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, Kash Patel and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are just a few of his choirboys, closely akin to the mob who kill Simon and Piggy in William Golding’s novel.
The imaginary beast of “Lord of the Flies,” according to Trump and his followers, comes with various names: communism, socialism, transgenderism, immigration, vaccines and the free press. He vented some of his anger by directly threatening a reporter this week, telling Andrew Feinberg of the Independent, “I don’t know who the hell you are, but you better be careful.” Not one reporter stood up to defend Feinberg. All of them should have.
The New York Times reported this week that Trump is now considering throwing the entire press corps out of the White House, turning the Brady Briefing Room back into a swimming pool (as it was in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time) and banishing us all to the other side of the island, or at least to the Executive Office Building across the street. He made similar threats during his first administration.
The reason is clear enough — despite all of our shortcomings in the press, there are still too many reporters who have actually read “Lord of the Flies” and recognize Trump for what he is. Every time he’s on television, when he’s not sleeping through a meeting, he reveals once again how unhinged, incompetent and corrupt he truly is.
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Further examination of reality makes clear, however, that the “Lord of the Flies” metaphor ultimately fails. It’s not just our country that resembles a group of children stranded on a deserted island with no rules or adults to guide us. The whole world is that way. If we were ever the beacon on the hill or the big brother or the Ralph from “Lord of the Flies” who stood up for liberty and justice, we’ve abandoned that role. The choirboys have taken over. Some of them, like Trump, even wear face paint, like in the book.
Russia, China, most of the Middle East and Africa, France and other parts of Europe all look like crazed pre-pubescents hunting pigs with spears. If we want to broaden the analogy, Trump isn’t even the leader of the pack.
His actions this week make clear that he’s just a Roger. He represents malice, cruelty and a descent into brutality, but the true leader of the choirboys is Putin. He is obviously pulling Trump’s chain. He trolls him, leads him by the nose and manipulates him, playing him with such finesse that Trump can get himself twisted into a Gordian knot as easily as most of us draw breath.
What happens next? That isn’t written in any book, at least not yet. But come Nov. 4, should we all survive that long, it will be.
