John Cornyn was a typical Texan Republican. A former judge, he was seen as one of the most conservative figures in Congress for most of his 24 years in the Senate. He is anti-abortion, supports tax cuts, and is a foreign policy hawk. He opposed efforts to fight climate change, played a leading role in attempts to repeal Barack Obama’s reforms that extended healthcare, and raised more than $400m for his party.
Yet he was mocked in right-wing media as a RINO (Republican In Name Only), jeered by party activists and ousted after falling out with his president.
Cornyn’s crime in the eyes of the Maga movement was to make a gun control deal with the Democrats after 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered in a school shooting – which led firearms fanatics to label him “the traitor from Texas” – and then dare suggest the ageing Donald Trump should not run again for the White House in 2024.
So the president took revenge by helping a sleazy, scandal-plagued loyalist replace him as their candidate in the midterms. And this swelled the blue wave that swept through the Lone Star State last week – among the most dramatic results as voters across the nation displayed their contempt for a corrupt and floundering regime.
The exile of such a staunch conservative, followed by the revolt against Trump that shredded his party in many traditional heartlands, shows what happens when the parasite of populism enters the body politic and takes over a mainstream party.
Yet as Cornyn wrote in the Wall Street Journal, this landslide was predictable since his side ignored basic tenets of electoral politics after building a victorious coalition that won over many black, Hispanic and working-class voters. “Successful coalitions add, they don’t subtract,” he said. “When nominees show contempt for voters and request a smaller Republican Party, voters oblige them.”
So this veteran lawmaker joins swelling ranks of prominent Republicans repulsed by Trump. Some became scathing critics, refusing to aid the appeasement of such an appalling figure. History will judge them kindly. Among them is Mitt Romney, who in 2016 called his successor as the party’s presidential candidate a “conman”, backed his impeachment and this year warned about the US slide into authoritarianism.
“Bad policy, bad character make bad politics: erratic tariffs, impulsive Iran war, blanket pardons, apparent corruption, weaponized justice, ICE brutality, mountainous deficits, hiding Epstein, abandoning allies and coddling enemies,” he said on social media last week. “Hoping for a course correction, for the country and for my party.”
This seems a forlorn hope, judging by the president’s promotion of Stephen Miller – ultra-Maga architect of the immigration crackdown that drove away many Hispanic voters – to serve as chief of staff. The move suggests that Trump, angered by self-inflicted electoral wounds, will be even worse over his final two years in the White House, causing greater damage to his party, his nation and to democracy.
Reporting on US politics since the rise of Trump, it has been striking how often his fiercest critics turn out to be traditional Republicans disgusted by his abuse, greed, fiscal policies or foreign policy. Typical was Bill, a lifelong Republican voter in his seventies whom I met last year in Virginia.
“Trump’s a f***ing arsehole and they have no idea what they are doing,” snapped this retired defence contractor when I asked his views on the returning president. Sarah, another pensioner, underlined this unfurling political realignment, telling me she had always voted Republican until Trump’s ascendancy. “I don’t like the way he treats people or the way he represents our country,” she said.
In Texas last month I spoke to Tom Phillips, who won four elections for the party as the state’s Chief Justice but endorsed James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for Senate. “I consider myself a Republican – or at least a Republican in exile,” he told me, before criticising how Congress had failed to challenge the administration as it abandoned free trade, extended the role of government and used “lawfare” to target critics. “The Republican party has strayed from its traditional principles.”
Trump is unusually greedy, incompetent, spiteful and vain – even for a politician. Yet his party’s crushing defeat, staggering in scale, offers lessons beyond US shores. It shows clearly the realities of the brand of billionaire-funded snake-oil populism sold by his fan Nigel Farage.
Yet it also presents a stark warning to Britain’s Conservatives under Kemi Badenoch, another arrogant leader who seems similarly content to shrink her party’s coalition by shedding supporters who disagree with her hard-right stance. Despite talk of a Tory resurgence, they have suffered a series of electoral setbacks and even as Reform UK stumbles, only clawed back to the level that saw them suffer their biggest defeat in history, according to a YouGov poll last week.
There are sharp parallels with their US cousins. The Tories built an election-winning coalition based on hollow Brexit populism, then tore it apart under the self-serving leadership of Boris Johnson. Now Badenoch tries to rebuild her shrivelled party. Yet she argues they acted like Labour in office – despite inflicting austerity, the catastrophe of Brexit and Liz Truss on the country – and insists candidates must adopt her reactionary stance on the environment and Europe.
“I won’t apologise to those walking away because they don’t like the new direction – we only want Conservatives,” she said this year, rebuffing an initiative to bring “politically homeless” moderates back into the fold.
This hubristic Tory leader declared last year that Trump’s return to power “will be a force for good in the world”, said Elon Musk’s botched efforts to savage government spending were not “radical enough” and criticised Labour’s lack of support for the war in Iran. Now she tries to distance herself from the White House loser. But she should also take a long hard look at last week’s US election results – and see the electoral realities about building coalitions, not destroying them, if she wants to be a winner.
As Cornyn rightly observed, you need a big tent to rebuild a party.
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