Opinion: It’s About Time For Republicans to Dump Donald Trump

No one ever accused Marjorie Taylor Greene of being the sharpest tool in the shed. So when the penny drops for her, you can be pretty sure it has already hit home for millions of others of even the most slow-motion minds in America. (Note: A penny is a form of currency that used to exist in the United States until… yesterday.)

Greene’s revelation, one that has come as a surprise to many, is that it is now time for the members of MAGA world to distance themselves from Donald Trump. And, for one of the few times in her career, it has to be acknowledged: She is right.

If Republicans seek to have a future as a party, there is one looming imperative that grows more urgent with each passing day.

It is time to dump Trump.

That is not to say, of course, that he will be easy to get rid of. He is entitled to stay in office through January 2029 and as he himself points out, given the amount of money and effort he is spending to make the White House look like a Rococo bordello he’s not planning on going anywhere soon.

As for his political clout, that’s another matter.

Donald Trump is just not the man he used to be. Which, given that his close buddy America’s most notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein called the Trump he knew “evil beyond belief,” maybe not be such a bad thing. That said, Epstein’s comments are an increasingly big part of the problem.

It is certainly not a good thing when a political leader becomes the answer to the question, “Who did the worst guy in the world think was the worst guy in the world?” Even for Trump who has managed to have a thriving political career despite having lived his entire life under a spray tan-colored cloud of accusations of serial sex abuse, repugnant behavior, prejudice and corruption in every imaginable form, the current torrent of revelations about his ties to Epstein may be especially damaging.

From left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images) — Epstein wrote in a 2018 email that Trump, his friend of over 10 years, was “evil beyond belief.” Davidoff Studios/Getty Images

First of all, among the few things that unite both the right and the left in America are the sense that Epstein’s crimes were especially abhorrent and that the serial cover-ups and sweetheart deals that protected the sex-trafficker and those who joined him in the serial rape of young girls represent an especially odious breakdown of the U.S. judicial system.

Americans also can plainly see that Trump and top officials in his administration have done everything in their power to bury the Epstein investigation. He has done it for years, appointing the prosecutor who gave the sweetheart deal to Epstein in the first place, Alex Acosta, a place in his cabinet during his first term and, more recently, dispatching his Deputy Attorney General to meet with Epstein moll and partner-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell and then offer her the cushiest of ways to serve out her sentence in what surely seemed like a play for her silence—and perhaps even defense of Trump.

We know that massive Department of Justice resources went into an effort to go through the Epstein files and identify times in which Trump was mentioned. And we know that Trump, his Attorney General and his FBI Director have actively and intensively sought to get Republicans like Lauren Boebert to withdraw their support for the Epstein docs discharge petition. The fact that Boebert refused to go along underscores the point made at the outset that even some of America’s dimmest bulbs understand just how damaging the Epstein mess can be to Trump. (Boebert makes Greene look like Margaret Thatcher.)

Even Rep. Lauren Boebert has broken from Trump on Epstein. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

No, the Epstein scandal is bad, getting worse and not going away for a long, long time. That will certainly make Trump increasingly toxic. Indeed, association with it would long ago have been enough to end the career of any other U.S. politician. But, Trump has shown a remarkable ability to not only shrug off scandals that would have destroyed other men but to actually weave his pussy-grabbing, many-times-bankrupt, Russia-loving fountain of bullshit into MAGA legend. You want to fight woke? Let’s support the least woke man in America, the anti-Christ of wokeness.

Republican politicians went along with all that for one reason: It was in their interest to do so. For whatever reason, at this moment in our nation’s history, one of the vilest people in our nation’s history won the support of enough voters to become president.

For whatever reason, Trump clicked. So the party faithful said, ok sure, if that’s the game and it’ll help us win elections, we’ll go along with it.

Of course, as it happened, it didn’t help them win elections. Not in 2018. Not in 2020. And despite a narrow rebound in 2024, certainly not again this year. Nearly two-thirds of Americans think Trump is failing at the one job his supporters thought he was best at: managing the economy. His other signature policy—turning racism into authoritarian immigration tactics—is also hugely unpopular. Indeed, so is Trump with only a third of Americans supporting him, his approval at a low for any time in either of his presidencies.

President Donald Trump — Epstein alleged in a 2018 email that the president had signs of “early dementia.” SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Worse for Republicans, the year ahead does not bode much better. A stock market crash could be around the corner. Housing markets are a mess. And Trump’s tariffs—also widely loathed—are going to continue to push prices up making America’s affordability crisis worse. There is virtually nothing on the horizon to suggest that Trump’s popularity will rise between now and next year’s mid-term elections. And of course, a defeat in the midterms will be the end of the Trump agenda. If Democrats win even one House of Congress, Trump will not get another piece of legislation passed.

Trump is not just a lame duck. He is a very old lame duck, the oldest president in our history. And he looks it. He is low energy. He is often incoherent. His old off-the-cuff humor and charm is fading fast. Everyone can see it. His recent obsession with wanting to name stadiums and buildings and airports after himself is a clear sign it is time to start thinking legacy.

Which is why we are at a turning point. The Trump Era is coming to an end. Donald J. Trump has passed his sell-by date and frankly, we can all tell by the growing stink emanating from the ruins of the White House.

Bye, bye, big guy. Don’t let the embarrassingly gilded door smack you on the way out.

The post Opinion: It’s About Time For Republicans to Dump Donald Trump appeared first on The Daily Beast.

Opinion: It’s About Time For Republicans to Dump Donald Trump

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