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The ink had barely dried on the COVID relief package Democrats passed in the spring when some of the same Republicans who voted against the legislation began touting its benefits in their districts, an example of the partys efforts to have it both waysto reflexively bash Joe Biden and the Democrats while claiming credit for the popular parts of their agenda. Now, as they lambast the president for what they describe as out-of-control spending, theyre taking a similar tack: Decrying the American Rescue Plan and other initiatives in their attacks on Biden over inflation, even as they embrace the resources such plans have afforded.

As the New York Times reported Wednesday, Republican governors have made use of Bidens COVID stimulus money, even as they condemn it in public remarks as a giant handout. It would be spent somewhere other than South Dakota, said Governor Kristi Noem, who previously suggested she would turn down the nearly one billion dollars in federal funding but has since made plans to put the money toward water projects, housing, and daycare in the state. The debt would still be incurred by the country, and our people would still suffer the consequences of that spending.

Montanans are struggling with the Biden inflation tax, seeing their paychecks stretched thinner and thinner as inflation hits a high we havent seen in nearly four decades, Governor Greg Gianforte said last week, after Consumer Price Index numbers showed inflation soaring by 6.8% in November over the previous year. I urge President Biden and Democrats in D.C. to turn off the spigot of out-of-control spending and get inflation under control. Per the Times, that spigot has poured about $906 million into Gianfortes state, which has used the federal dollars for infrastructure projects and other measures.

This is not to suggest that these states do not deserve federal dollars or that governors critical of Biden shouldnt be making use of their portions. Residents of these states should benefit from the COVID bailout. But it is, of course, hypocritical to rail against these so-called handouts while they stretch their hands out to the administration.

Inflation has emerged as a significant challenge for Biden, whose otherwise solid economic rebound has been nagged by high consumer prices. Much of the issue appears to be driven by demand and a disjointed supply chain. But the American Rescue Plan has, indeed, seemed to contribute to the overheated economy, and criticizing the policy is by no means out of bounds. Missing from the GOP broadsides, though, are the very real benefits of the legislation, which theyve appeared willing to accept.

Ive had direct conversations with virtually all of the Republican governors or their top officials, Gene Sperling, who is leading the Biden administrations pandemic relief efforts, told the Times. And to the one, they have been constructive, nonpolitical, nuts and bolts conversations about how they can best use their American Rescue Plan funds for things like broadband, schools, water and work force development in a way that meets the needs of their state.

Republicans understandably turn to the government for assistance when their state needs it, as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul did in recently urging Biden to move expeditiously to approve the appropriate resources our state following the devastation from tornadoes; the president declared a federal disaster the next day. But as the Washington Post notes, the senators request conjured memories of Pauls own lengthy history of opposing congressional legislation written to address past disasters, including bills passed following hurricanes Sandy, Harvey and Maria directing billions of dollars of assistance to stricken Americans. Paul told the paper that critics were distorting his record. We should do all we can to help our Kentucky neighbors, Rep. Eric Swalwell tweeted. God be with themthey are hurting. But do not for one second forget that [Paul] has voted against helping most Americans most times theyre in need.

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Republican Governors Have No Problem Spending the COVID Relief Money They Opposed - Vanity Fair

OPINION:

We are likely going to suffer through a year of triumphalism among some Republicans in anticipation of the party winning control of the House and probably the Senate in November. Some of that is warranted; if you project the results in Virginia nationwide, it looks like the Republicans should net between 40 and 50 seats in the House.

It also is likely that with competitive races for Democrat-held seats in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire, the Republicans will find the one Senate seat they need to preside over the Senate (although some of the potential Republican Senate nominees may decrease the odds a bit).

Will Republican control of Congress be a good thing? That probably depends on whether congressional Republicans are ready to present and press for alternatives to the policies of the Democrats.

We all watched the recent debt ceiling increase, in which Republican leadership in the Senate did not merely allow but actually created the pathway for the Democrats to increase the debt ceiling without any legislative friction. That could be an uncomfortable preview of the coming year and the years after that.

Congressional Republicans, especially those in the Senate, appear to be much more concerned about having the majority than they are about doing anything with the majority. Senate Republican leadership has already said that it has no intention of providing any clarity concerning its policy preferences if it presides over the Senate.

In the absence of affirmative messages, Republicans, who could not be bothered to construct a platform in 2020, nor execute any formal assessment as to why they lost in 2020, may default to being opposed to whatever the other side is doing. That would be unfortunate. Team Biden will turn that negativity against Republicans in 2024.

Remember that former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama managed to win reelection after terrible midterm losses by using congressional Republicans as foils.

Some dont seem to understand that the time is over when just being in charge was enough. Voters, especially Republican voters, expect genuine efforts to push back against the prevailing regime and promote an agenda focused on something (security, prosperity, freedom, whatever).

Nor should the current composition of Congress encourage much optimism. The current generation of media stars are often those least able to shepherd a coherent thought, let alone a coherent ideology or a coherent legislative program.

Fortunately, there is hope, especially in the House. There, several lawmakers, most notably Rep. Gary Palmer from Alabama, chair of the Republican Policy Committee, and Rep. Jim Banks from Indiana, chair of the House Republican Study Committee, are focused on positive alternatives to those being pursued by Team Biden and the progressives.

I was fortunate enough to visit with Mr. Palmer recently, and he shared his vision for defining policy differences between Republicans and Democrats. Mr. Palmer is a bit of a policy polymath; he switched seamlessly among topics including China, law enforcement, border security, history and health care. His responses and approaches were invariably grounded in data and facts.

He believes, rightly, that Republicans need to focus on national security (China, immigration), local security (think crime), personal security (data, health care) and the many and varied ways in which the current regime has compromised all three. His approaches are built on enhancing the freedom and responsibility of the individual rather than the power and authority of the state.

Those who care about such things should watch Mr. Palmer and his allies closely and expect more expansive and granular explications of his and their ideas soon.

The good news for the republic is that there are still members like Mr. Palmer, who can weave facts, data and principles through thoughtful deliberation into meaningful and winning legislative proposals and, eventually, into useful and productive laws.

Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is the president of MWR Strategies. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House.

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Republicans need solid policies and thoughtful leaders in Congress - Washington Times

There is only one truth: the truth of the party. And the party is Donald Trump.

That's what it's come down to, folks. The Republican Party has been effectively transformed into a doppelgnger of the Chinese Communist Party, withits own version of Chairman Mao Zedong at its head and the first thing on the Party agenda is a purge.

It started soon after Trump lost the election last November. Who was out? Anyone who refused to help facilitate the Big Lie was pushed out by the Republicans' Maximum Leader. Brad Raffensberger, the Republican secretary of state in Georgia, who turned down Trump's plea to "find" 11,000-plus votes so he could flip the election in that state. Out. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, another Republican who didn't sign onto the Big Lie with enough enthusiasm to please the Maximum Leader: Out. Trump tweeted on Dec. 30 (when he still had a Twitter account), "@BrianKempGA should resign from office. He is an obstructionist who refuses to admit that we won Georgia, BIG!"

CNN described Trump's purge campaign this way: "Trump has taken his involvement in 2022 Republican primaries to a new level as he works to permanently mold the GOP in his image. Beyond Trump's public efforts to oust Republican incumbents he considers disloyal, he has quietly tried to clear potential GOP threats to his endorsed candidates and encouraged others to run against his enemies."

The Maximum Leader is endorsing candidates running against any Republican who voted to impeach him, most prominently Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who has taken a lead role in the investigation by the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She has already been stripped of her leadership position in the Republican House Caucus and was censured by the Wyoming Republican Party.

RELATED:"It's basically the Titanic": Republican dissent grows louder as GOP preps for a NeverTrump purge

Trump has moved on around the country, endorsing people he considers loyalists even when they come laden with baggage, as with his endorsement of former NFL star Herschel Walker in next year's Georgia Senate race, even though Walker was accused during a divorce of "physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior," including threatening his ex-wife with a pistol and knives. In the race for Pennsylvania's open Senate seat, Trump endorsed Sean Parnell despite similar allegations in a divorce filing that Parnellwas physically abusive to his wife and children. (Parnell recently suspendedhis campaign after a judge awarded his ex-wife primary physical custody and sole legal custody of their children.)

Back in Georgia, the Maximum Leader has also endorsed former Sen. David Perdue to run against Kemp in the Republican primary for governor. Perdue lost his race for re-election to the Senate to Democrat Jon Ossoff in a January runoff.

In Alabama, Trump is said to be considering backing a challenger to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, in retaliation for her decision denying his request to hold a 2020 campaign rally at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park. He is also backing Rep. Mo Brooks in his campaign for the open Senate seat in Alabama. Brooks has been a fierce backer of Trump anda super-spreader of the Big Lie, and appeared with the Maximum Leader at his Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse, where he helpedrile up the crowd before the assault on the Capitol.

Possibly the best thing that ever happened to Fox News was Twitter's permanent suspension of Trump's account two days after the assault on the Capitol. With the Maximum Leader no longer able to address his followers directly, he became dependent on Fox as his chief propaganda arm.

It happened just in time, because after Fox News becamethe first network to announce that Biden had won the state of Arizona in the November election, many Fox viewers became so angry that they had fled almost immediately to even further-right outlets such as Newsmax and the OAN network. On Dec. 8, 2020, Newsmax achieved a ratings win over Fox News for the first time, when "Greg Kelly Reports" on Newsmax beat "The Story with Martha MacCallum" on Fox in the 7 p.m. news slot. By March of this year, a public opinion poll by Fabrizio, Lee & Associates showed that Fox had lost viewers to both Newsmax and OAN, although the network remained far ahead of both right-wing rivals in the overall ratings.

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Panicked at the prospect of losing the Trump base, Fox News threw itself into the arms of the Maximum Leader and unleashed its dogs, encouraging its star evening hosts to go all-in on spreading the Big Lie that Trump was the "true" winner of the 2020 election. Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham took their shows even further to the right than usual. Carlson produced a special called "Patriot Purge," which premiered in early November on the network's new streaming service, Fox Nation. The three-part series attempts to make the case for the entirely concocted premise that the Capitol assault was not carried out by Trump supporters but was a "false flag" operation run by the FBI, antifaand other shadowy forces.

Most recently, there was the release of text messages sent to Mark Meadows by Fox stars Hannity, Ingraham and "Fox & Friends" host Brian Kilmeade, asking the then-White House chief of staff to get Trump to call off the insurrection and send his followers home. After that news hit the headlines, the Fox hosts reacted like they'd been bitten by a rabid hedgehog, denying that their texts had said what they said and pledging lifetime fealty to the Maximum Leader.

Two prominent figures in the world of Fox News recently resigned in protest of Carlson's "Patriot Purge" series: Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes. Last Sunday, Fox host Chris Wallace announced he was leaving the network for CNN's new streaming service, CNN+. But none of the three really left of their own accord. They were purged. They weren't sufficiently Trumpian. In a Wednesday column, Goldberg said he was leaving because he couldn't take the lies and hypocrisy, describing a culture within the network where Fox hosts would "say one thing to my face or in my presence and another thing when the cameras and microphones were flipped on." Everyone at Fox News knew what had happened on Jan. 6, Goldberg implied. It was their lies "over the 11 months that followed" that drove him out.

This is what a cultural revolution looks like. First comes a purge of all opponents or even doubters of the Maximum Leader, followed by a purification of the Party in his name. In China, the Cultural Revolution lasted from 1966 until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and was aimed at removing Mao's rivals in the Party, government, schools and workplaces. Mao insisted that those disloyal to the Party should be removed by violent class struggle, symbolized by his call to "bombard the headquarters," including local government buildings, party headquarters, schools and colleges. Books that were determined to run counter to Mao'steachingswere burned. Scholars, professors and government bureaucrats were sent into what amounted to in-country exile in re-education and work camps.

All you have to do is subtract the word "camps" to describe what the Republican Party is doing right now around this country. They are banning books in Texas and elsewhere. They are collecting petitions to run recall elections against school board members guilty of teaching what they see as "anti-white" subjects in schools, by which they mean the actual history of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis just proposedan "anti-Woke" law allowing parents to sue local school boards if they feel their children are being taught the mythical subject "critical race theory." Thatproposal is based on the Texas anti-abortion law that recently went into effect allowing random citizens to sue anyone who facilitates an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. In both Florida and Texas, what amounts to cadres of vigilantes are being established to enforce the Party's will on the populace in this case, the will of the Republican Party.

RELATED:Ron DeSantis escalates his authoritarian purge: GOP bounty hunters are the next frontier

Every time a Republican stands up and points out that the emperor has no clothes, the Party destroys him or her. Which makes you wonder, how long will it be before you don't have to be a Republican to be purged and have your career destroyed? When will it come to pass that if you speak anti-Trump thoughts or write anti-Trump articles or attend anti-Trump rallies or even God help us cast anti-Trump votes, you will putyourself in danger of losing your job?

Mao unleashed the Cultural Revolution to destroy naysayers and enemies of the Party. Stalin created the Gulag as an instrument of political repression to accomplish the same thing. More than 18 million supposed opponents of the Communist Party were consigned to the camps between 1930 and 1953, the year of Stalin's death.

Notice that in both cases, the Maximum Leader had to die himself before his campaign of political repression, punishment and death was ended.

Both the Soviet Union and China had to go through a process of self-correction after decades of political repression, thought control, re-education and murder. The Russian self-correction eventually led to the bankruptcy and breakup of the Soviet Union. The self-correction in China led to the abandonment of communism in all but name and the remaking of the country as a capitalist economy under centralized state control. Neither country today looks anything like it looked under the Maximum Leaders who brought them down.

In this country, the Republican Party is "Republican" in name only and seems incapable of self-correction. It would have to throw off the bonds of Donald Trump and his lies in order to even begin to come to its senses. It may be the case that there are doubters in the Party ranks, or people who not only should know better but do know better. But unless they can raise objections without facing political death, the Republican Party's cultural revolution will continue, if past is prologue, until the Maximum Leader dies.

More from Lucian K. Truscott IV on the state of America:

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The American Mao: Donald Trump has led the Republican Party into a cultural revolution - Salon

The consequences are severe. Meadows could be sentenced to a year in prison, or even worse, another month working for Trump. JIMMY FALLON

Of course, Meadows needs a good lawyer, so the first thing he did was pull up Rudy Giulianis number and delete it. JIMMY FALLON

The Republican caucus is an accessory to this coup, and we recently got more evidence of that in the form of text messages to Mark Meadows, like this one received on Jan. 7 from a Republican lawmaker: Yesterday was a terrible day. Well, I mean, at least we can all agree on that. STEPHEN COLBERT

We tried everything we could in our objection to the six states. Im sorry nothing worked. Oh, so he regrets not being able to drown Lady Liberty in a bathtub. Its like sending a sympathy card that says, My deepest condolences that you lived. I was rooting for the tumor! STEPHEN COLBERT

So, who sent these messages? Well, the identity of these lawmakers was not being disclosed, so people on Twitter are now guessing names like Paul Gosar, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and you can play the home version in the fun new game Clue-less. STEPHEN COLBERT

These messages have the ring of unfiltered truth because theyre taken from Mark Meadows two personal phones and nothing says innocent like a second cellphone. STEPHEN COLBERT

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Stephen Colbert Holds the Republican Caucus in Contempt - The New York Times

Like a lot of people, I get a ton of thirsty emails from Donald Trump. On Saturday, he sent this note: See you in Sunrise, FL, in a little while and tomorrow, Orlando. Big crowds!

He was referring to the first installment of his road show with former Fox host Bill OReilly. Attendance was lackluster.

It would be silly to read too much into this. While I would consider tickets to an OReilly-Trump roadshow expensive at any price, including free, these tickets at least prior to last-minute discounts were pretty steep.

But other evidence suggests Trumps appeal is becoming more selective to borrow a term from Spinal Tap. His ability to draw big TV viewership started to crater back in June.

Trumps clout with GOP voters, while still significant, seems less formidable all the time. Sean Parnell, his handpicked candidate in Pennsylvanias U.S. Senate primary, dropped out of the race. Prominent Trump toady Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, who opposed certification of Bidens victory, is falling behind his Republican primary opponent Katie Britt despite Trumps endorsement of Brooks. Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama recently raised eyebrows by attending a Britt fundraiser. Sen. Lisa Murkowski may have a tough reelection fight ahead of her, but Murkowski, not her Trump-backed opponent, will have the support of the national Republican Party.

Trump still polls well among Republicans, but according to a Pew survey in October, about half dont want to see him run again. In November, the Des Moines Registers widely respected Iowa Poll found that 61% of Iowa Republicans said they are more aligned with the party than with Trump, while only 26% said they were more aligned with Trump than with the party.

And, of course, there was the big GOP victory in Virginia last month, led by gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin. The message for Republicans in competitive states: Dont repudiate Trump, but dont embrace him too much either, and larger numbers of Trump-hostile Republicans and independents will return to the GOP fold.

Some of this is Trumps own fault. He reserves most of his passion for his bogus claims about the election being stolen. And while hes persuaded a dismaying number of Republicans to tell pollsters they believe that the 2020 election was rigged, the only pundits and politicians still talking about it are fringe characters, like pillow magnate Mike Lindell, bilking the true believers for donations and clicks. Trumps new social media startup looks like a similar effort on a larger scale. Even Rupert Murdoch has told him to move on.

Now, its easy to tell the opposite story that Trump remains the leader of the Republican Party and the presumptive nominee if he runs. We hear it constantly because theres a weird convergence between Trump-friendly media and Trump-hostile media; they share an obsession with Trumps stranglehold of the GOP. The anti-Trump outfit the Lincoln Project is virtually begging Trump to run again.

The thing to keep in mind, however, is that the Trump-addicted audience is a smaller slice of the electorate than either side would like to admit. Its big enough to drive cable news coverage (and donations), but those outlets service a very thin slice of the public.

Perhaps the most telling sign is that even Trump himself doesnt think its a foregone conclusion he could secure the nomination. Hes reportedly livid with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for not publicly declaring he wont run for president if Trump does. Part of that is Trumps ego-driven desire to demonstrate his dominance, but its also a sign that he feels the need to clear the field rather than compete in it. He could certainly be goaded into running again, just as he was in 2016. But the more likely scenario is that Trump will continue to keep everyone guessing until the last minute to maximize attention and profit. The best way to ensure he doesnt run again is for Republicans like DeSantis to signal hell have to work for it and thus risk looking like a loser twice.

The next Trump chapter in American politics probably wont be satisfying to either his passionate supporters or opponents. The anti-Trump folks arent likely to get to see him in an orange jumpsuit and his cultists wont live to see some sort of coronation. Hell fade away, leaving his nominal party and country worse off for him ever having come down that escalator in the first place.

@JonahDispatch

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Column: Trumps clout with Republican voters seems to be slipping away - Los Angeles Times