There was a definite through-line to the stories we covered this week. And it’s an unmistakably negative through-line. The Republican Party, headed by Donald Trump, has no shortage of derelicts, warring factions, racists and power-hungry people who have no moral compass.
Bad Behavior? No Big Deal!
Republicans and their supporters continually make excuses for their members’ abhorrent behavior. It’s as though reprehensible behavior is automatically dismissed and cast aside. Why is that? Is it because they know their ranks are dwindling because the gigantic boulder of lies they’ve unleashed on the public has finally reached the bottom of the mountain?
Take Max Miller, Republican congressman from Ohio. Emily Moreno alleges that her husband has thrown scalding water on her, held a gun to her head and has also thrown her up against a wall during arguments. She even alleges abuse of their two-year-old daughter. Moreno is the daughter of Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, who has told news outlets he “fears for his granddaughter when she is in the company of her father”. Miller denies the allegations, but this isn’t the first time he has been accused of violence against a woman. Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham alleges Miller abused her during their relationship. She wrote about the abuse in her 2021 memoir and later identifiedMiller as her abuser in a Washington Post story.
It’s hard for us here at Pragmotiv to be shocked by the stories coming out of the right-wing ecosystem, but what’s more maddening than this story of domestic violence is the reaction of other republicans. Grisham claims to have told White House officials about the abuse at the time, but nothing was done. Likewise, it seems nothing will be done by the party about these allegations as well because Republicans are in lockstep as usual, closing ranks and rallying around their guy. Because of the growing scrutiny, the House Ethics Committee has now announced their intent to open an investigation.
It would be too numerous to list all the allegations surrounding republican members, the failure of leadership to investigate allegations or implement accountability measures; think Pete Hegseth, Matt Gaetz, Cory Mills, and Roy Moore. I could go on. A cursory google search brings up so many allegations with virtually no backlash from the party’s leadership.
In contrast, the Democrats always swiftly condemn their members who are accused of such things and there is usually some form of accountability or, at the very least, public condemnation. Recent case in point: Graham Platner. Miller has vowed to stay in the race and the fact that he could still win that seat is very problematic. It says that the republican body politic is ok with their members being accused of horrific acts and nothing being done about it. Again, it’s not surprising given who they elected as President, but it is appalling.
The MAGA Implosion
Speaking of the “President”. There are growing signs that his MAGA base is fractured. Defections by former loyalists Marjorie Taylor Green, Ashley St. Clair, and Tucker Carlson. Some well-known right-wing Podcasters have even started to criticize the administration’s handling of certain things. Whereas, in the past, the administration and trump received little, if any, scrutiny. Polls show the overall numbers of those identifying themselves as republicans continue to shrink. What is going on?
Former MAGA members are getting together to deradicalize and reunite with family and friends. One such nonprofit named Leaving Maga was started by former Trump loyalist Rich Logis. Why would you need de-radicalization unless you are in a cult? That’s the difference between the Left and the Right. The Left calls out its leaders and debates amongst themselves to foster consensus and move forward together. No party is perfect, certainly not the Democratic party.However, it just seems to us that there’s a lot of deviant, violent, radical, and problematic thinking and behavior amongst those who make up the Republican Party.
One news story revealed the roots of indoctrination. Former members spoke about a sense of belonging and being wooed by MAGA members with financial and emotional help that seemed to come with strings attached. One self-described “Trad Wife” talked about something called “household voting”. This is an ultra-conservative political concept where a family casts only one collective vote. It proposes that the wife should voluntarily cede her individual votingright to the husband under the belief that the husband should exclusively represent the political interests of the family.
When you consider the details of the SAVE Act, it’s clear where the impetus for the Bill’s proposed suppression of women’s voting rights came from. It’s literally giving cult! As with most cults, there comes a point where the cult members start to see through the farce and once their eyes are opened, they want nothing more to do with the cult. One very poignant story was that of Stefania, the “Trad Wife”. During the pandemic, her husband contracted long-covid and could no longer work, so she had to go back to work as a Respiratory Therapist. She talked about how her eyes began to open when the information she was being fed by the MAGA echo chamber began to conflict with her understanding of science. They were being told conflicting things about masks. MAGA said don’t wear a mask, they don’t stop the spread, and she knew this to be false. She says the karmic feeling that her family was being negatively impacted by her own voting choices finally broke through the cognitive dissonance. The right-wing echo chamber has a dumbing effect that offers a steady diet of lies and misinformation. We here at Pragmotiv are trying to counteract that by presenting facts.
Further concrete proof that MAGA is fractured is the fact that the White House is now telling Republican candidates running in midterm elections to distance themselves from Trump. He is, once again, a liability. But even though it is clear that MAGA is imploding, it doesn’t mean the rest of us can just sit by and watch it happen. We must actively participate in our democratic processes to save our republic from further decline. Our economy has been damaged. Our reputation and standing in the world as a leader are degraded. Who has Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s policies and actions benefitted. Not us. But they have benefitted some: Trump, his cronies, his family and Vladimir Putin.
Racism is Cool Again
The only thing Donald Trump has made great again is racism. The racism coming from the right is palpable and increasingly out in the open. It’s now okay to be blatantly sexist and racist. Where does this lead? Some would argue it leads to people being hurt and killed. At the very least, it leads to things like what happened to Amir Hassan. Hassan is a Black man who was running for Michigan’s eighth district congressional seat. He lost to Tom Smith after leading during the entire cycle and after his opponent had already dropped out of the race! Hassan lost purely because of MAGA’s racism against Muslims and Black people. Hassan used to be a Muslim, but he converted to Christianity some years ago. The attack ads and social media posts painted him as a Muslim immigrant; strictly because of his name. The attacks prompted him to make a video about it.
In the video, Hassan explained how he is not an immigrant, was born here and how his family has been American citizens in the Michigan area for hundreds of years. But because hatred of names like Hassan and El-Sayed has been fomented constantly by the right-wing echo chamber, he was unable to overcome the negative effect even with Trump’s resounding endorsement. If this doesn’t prove that most voters don’t do their own research on candidates, we don’tknow what does.
This past week’s Congressional election in Missouri between Former Congresswoman Cory Bush and Wesley Bell ended with Bell taking 71% of the votes. Bush was trying to reclaim the seat she lost in 2024. Her opponent, Bell, who takes money from Trump’s donors as well as AIPAC, was silent regarding a sinister and racist ad against a fellow Black person. AIPAC ran an attack ad against Bush that used an altered photo of her with exaggerated facial features making her look ape-like. This is an age-old trope of Black people. You would think in 2026, these types of attacks would be frowned upon and called out. But Trumpism has lowered the bar so much and injected so much vitriol and vileness into our discourse that this type of thing is tolerated and employed with impunity.
Both actions and inactions have consequences. Good people must continue to call out the injustices, the vitriolic language, the violent idealism and the blatant racism for what it is. We must strive for respect and fairness in political discourse. It’s a difficult thing to do when the people at the top are fomenting it from the bully pulpit.
Let The Cheating Commence
If you pay attention to Donald Trump, he always telegraphs what he is going to do. Watch what he says but pay close attention to what he and his administration actually do. Right now, he’s telegraphing his real playbook for the upcoming midterm elections. It will not be stuffing ballot boxes or hacking voting machines (something many experts say is not possible). He plans to make you take away your own vote by scaring you into never casting it in the first place. The threat to send “monitors” is a way of chilling voter turnout. “Election integrity” legislation enacted in red states is meant to be voter suppression. Sympathetic organizations such as the Proud Boys will continue to act upon his implied marching orders as they seemingly did in 2022 in Arizona showing up armed to ballot drop locations.
In Michigan this past week, his administration had anonymous people on the ground at polling places. The Justice Department says they were monitoring polls in four Michigan counties, including Detroit’s. While we didn’t know what they were really doing there, there were teams at about two-thirds of the precincts. What were they doing? Was Todd Blanche placating Trump or was it a dress rehearsal for November? Were they getting the layout of these places so that they could seize ballots on election night? We can only look at the history of what has happened or been done in the past to try to gauge what will be done this November. Stay vigilant. Make a voting plan.
This concludes our recap of what we covered here at Pragmotiv News this week. As always, you can catch our new videos every weekday here on Substack, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcasts.