I don’t know how the midterm elections will turn out; I think Republicans will do better than expected, but who knows? – yet there’s one thing I’m entirely sure of. This election cycle has, at least, allowed us Republicans to rid ourselves of some of the biggest hacks any political party has ever had the misfortune to be saddled with. Whether we beat them in primaries or scared them out of primaries entirely, they’re gone, and they aren’t coming back. When this is over, we will be rid of that fraud Thomas Massie, the insipid Thom Tillis, the tiresome Bill Cassidy, and the Kinzingeresque Ukrainian fetishizer Don Bacon. Also past his sell-by date is that Bushesque phony John Cornyn, whose absolutely disgraceful post-primary defeat conduct has utterly vindicated the Texas Republicans who rejected him, whether Ken Paxton beats the blasphemous homunculus or not.
These are just the biggest names on the marquee among the big pains in the keister. A lot of other alleged conservatives are going away too. Where’s Dan Crenshaw at? Oh yeah, the unemployment line next to Marjorie Taylor Greene. They’ve decided, or had it decided for them, that an era of a GOP whose theme music doesn’t come from Deliverance or a circus isn’t for them. Maybe they’re just scared. Maybe they’re just weak. Maybe they’re just submissive. Whatever it is, there’s no place for them in the Republican Party of the future. Have you met young men in 2026? When that generation finally takes over, it’ll be awesome. These guys make Ted Cruz look like AOC.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a contingent within the conservative establishment that is biding its time, hoping that this whole Donald Trump fever dream breaks and will get back to what they define as normal. They used to be in charge. They used to have power and prestige. Now, no one returns their calls. In fact, no one recognizes them when they call. “George Will who?”
Yeah, they somehow imagine that the GOP will sober up and turn to them once again, trusting them to manage our decline like inoffensive gentlemen. That’s why you get the impression that some Republicans in politics and the media think that the Democrats taking one or even both houses of Congress might not be such a bad thing. Of course, when a Republican’s primary goal is keeping other Republicans under control and preventing them from doing the things that the Republican Party has been promising the Republican base to do for generations, that’s a Republican who’s got to go. We’re done with these guys. We’re never going back to the Age of Jeb, no matter how many of these goobers wag their pudgy fingers at us, babbling about honor and principles, words they use only as bludgeons, never as guides for their own conduct.
It’s not just the politicians who do it. We know the Never Trumpers and Fredocons; we’ve mocked them mercilessly, with their cheesy money grabs and prissy performative posting. I don’t know whether people like David French really believe what they say, and I don’t much care. The entire role of these people is one of novelty – 20 years ago, this guy wrote for one of the allegedly conservative publications that barely anyone reads anymore, if it still exists at all, so we must pretend he’s the voice of the Republican Party!
Nah.
Some of them think the transition from Donald Trump to whatever comes next is their chance to get back in the spotlight, but it won’t happen. We know their game, and we don't need them. The only people who do find them even marginally useful are the leftists. That’s why these turncoats get quoted in the regime media – they say what the Democrats want them to say, often while cashing paychecks from leftist billionaires. But the left utterly despises them too, even as they grovel and beg. It’s mortifying. It would be humiliating to them if they had any self-respect.
Others at the fringe of our movement haven’t formally aligned with the Democrats yet but do so informally. Erick Erickson recently declared that his towering moral principles wouldn't let him vote for Mike Collins, the terrific Republican running for the Senate in Georgia. Erickson is so transcendently conservative that he’s going to prove it by allowing a DSA-aligned abortion fanatic who would take our guns along with our right to speak the second he got the power to do so.
But principles are not a suicide pact. Remember, anyone who talks to you about political principles is presumptively running a scam. Anyone who comes at you telling you that honor requires you to do what the Democrats want is the political equivalent of a Nigerian prince emailing you with a secret opportunity to make a million bucks.
These types are especially upset because they’re becoming irrelevant, both politically and culturally. The movement has moved on, and it riles them up endlessly. Recently, James Lindsay, a conservative fighter in the sense that he calls himself a conservative while fighting actual conservatives, was scandalized that a new conservative book publisher is taking on the left’s monopoly over the publishing world by putting out books no one else will touch — you know, the kind of books you would want to read. Now I’m a little biased here when it comes to Passage Press because my new novel, American Warlord, comes out November 3 — election day — and a picture of its amazing cover art got Lindsay to tweet about us doing what Andrew Breitbart said and making actual conservative culture. Erick Erickson, utterly unsurprisingly, weighed in too against conservatives making conservative art. Why are they so mad?
Well, it’s obvious. They’re being left behind while the rest of us go on the offensive. We’re not waiting for admission to the arena anymore. We’re not asking anyone’s permission. We’re out there doing what we want. That’s what we’re doing in politics, with Donald Trump enacting policies we only dreamed of, like defunding NPR, mass deportations, prosecuting Democrat crooks, and focusing the military on its proper role of killing our enemies. These are hard fights. They are scary. They aren't for the faint of heart, and those channeling Mitt Romney don’t have the guts to fight.
In the cultural battlespace, our art targets people popular culture has completely sidelined — people like you. What’s the last best seller you felt like reading? If you’re looking for heroes who talk about their feelings, keep walking. If you want pronouns in the author’s biography, you’re looking in the wrong place. If your idea of great literature involves two-spirit Ecuadorian differently-abled trans poets and their struggles against the patriarchy, you’re about as off-target as can be. But if you want art that celebrates America, that highlights the glory of normal people, and is just plain badass, you should check out some of the conservative books and movies out there that are mortifying the meek and submissive – yes, including American Warlord.
We need to keep on purging a little longer. In a two-party system, you’ll have to make room for people who don’t quite agree with you on everything. Susan Collins, who doesn't agree with us on everything, is an honest, capable Republican who aggressively represents her state. She doesn’t screw with us. She doesn’t try to tell us what to do, and she doesn’t listen when anyone else tries to tell her what to do. That is a prime example of someone welcome within our big tent. But a big tent doesn't need someone who wants to set it on fire, especially when they do it because they’re mad that no one wants them in charge anymore. We’ve got far too much of that right now under the conservative big top.
Purges are neither inherently good nor bad; used promiscuously, they can devastate a movement. But failing to purge anyone at all can also devastate a movement. Instead, the issue is whether a given individual or group should be purged for the good of the whole. If you are looking to purge someone who is an 80 percent ally and doesn't mess with you, you are probably not playing it smart. But if you choose to purge people you can never rely on, who always side with the enemy, and who, when it comes time for them to swallow their pride and vote for the people who beat them in a primary, refused to do it, well, you have nothing to lose purging their sorry butts.
We’re never going back to what we were before Trump. This is never again going to be the party of Bush and Romney and the rest of the dorks we once backed, and then, when we stopped being useful, they stabbed us in the back. That most of the Bush family and their catspaws like Karl Rove seem to be rallying for James Talarico is no surprise to anyone who’s paid attention.
But the good news is that they’re going or gone. They’ve got no place in the Republican Party of the future. Soon, they'll be a vaguely troubling memory from long ago. No matter how this midterm election goes, the Republicans left behind will make for a stronger caucus. A purge isn’t always the answer, but sometimes it is. And no matter how the midterms go, at least we’re finally rid of a bunch of these jerks.
It’s less than two weeks until Kurt’s next action-packed conservative novel, “American Warlord,” is unleashed on 11/3/26, and it is out for presale now! Also, read Kurt’s Kelly Turnbull/People’s Republic series, including the latest "Panama Red," and follow Kurt on X @KurtSchlichter!
My super-secret email is Kurt.schlichter@townhall.com
