Where We At Now

It's been clear for a while now that the GOP is not a healthy thing. There's a real sickness to it that has led Republicans to some very dark places, which has put our little experiment in self-government in real jeopardy.

This piece in Business Insider seems like the perfect illustration of what we've known or suspected for a long time:

Trump is pocketing Georgia Senate runoff donations for his PAC, while the GOP candidates themselves don't get a dollar, a new report says

With only a few weeks left in office, President Donald Trump is taking his business instincts to a new fundraising venture for the highly consequential Georgia Senate runoffs, which will decide which party controls the upper chamber.

But a new report from Politico said 75% of most donations were going toward Trump's Save America political action committee. The other 25% goes to the Republican National Committee, with the split applying to the first $5,000 given, according to the donation page. That means the campaigns of Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are up for election on January 5, aren't directly receiving any of this money.

"The reality is Donald Trump does not care about the future of the Republican Party, so if he can raise money off of the Georgia runoffs but keep the money for his own purposes, he will do so," Doug Heye, a longtime GOP strategist, told Politico's Alex Isenstadt.

Similar to Trump's fundraising for his post-election legal challenges, the high percentage of donations going to his PAC is known only to donors who read the fine print of the email blasts.

If Trump chooses not to spend heavily in the race from the PAC, that money can be used for future endeavors.

The 75-25% split with the runoff donations is emblematic of a larger problem facing the GOP. Trump's outsize influence on the party base means not only that donations for his fundraising blitz could divert money from Loeffler and Perdue but also that similar conflicts could persist after the president leaves office.

Martha Zoller, who runs the pro-GOP Georgia United Victory PAC, told Politico that Trump's fundraising could help Loeffler and Perdue "if it can get to the right place."

"But if it's going to [Trump's] leadership PAC and not being spent on the behalf of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, I think that's problematic," she added.

The GOP is not a political party. It's not a movement, and it's not a governing philosophy.

It's a scam - a way to fleece the rubes while maintaining the power to do the things that perpetuate the cycle of abuse.

And it's not mere coincidence that they line up so well with the Evangelicals because the GOP seems to have adopted the model used by practically every mega-church: convincing the flock they have a make-believe illness in order to sell them a make-believe cure.