Conservative rages at Trump's Republican 'monkey' creators

A prominent conservative commentator expressed outrage at his fellow Republicans, who he described as “monkeys,” for helping to create President Donald Trump.

“A few Republican senators have been making a little noise about the Trump administration’s supposed deal — the agreement to seek an agreement — with Iran,” wrote Kevin D. Williamson in The Dispatch. “Apparently, there are some in Congress who believe that Congress should have some input here. That’s cute.”

Williamson explained that Trump declared the Iran war illegally by not receiving congressional approval first, then added that House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune were “servile” toward the president instead of asserting their institutional prerogatives.

“I have asked for days, why can’t we, the people, see the damn MOU?” Williamson quoted talk show host Mark Levin saying about Trump. “Not through people briefed by an anonymous person. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like this. If it is a great outcome for peace, then release it.”

He added, “There is an answer to that question, and it is that Trump does not care what Mark Levin has to say about this or about anything else. I used to have a friendly relationship with Mark Levin, who used to have me on his show from time to time and blurbed one of my books—and one cannot help but admire a man who has made a career in radio with that Gilbert Gottfried-meets-Wallace Shawn voice—but he is, like everybody else in the Fox News orbit, a cheap date where Trump is concerned.”

Despite Levin supporting Trump’s attempted coup in 2020-2021, Williamson said that Trump has treated the loyalist like a “cheap date.” The same thing is true for Thune, Williamson argued, who “whimpered that there should be ‘probably some expectation’ that the Senate would get a vote on this. Probably some expectation—forceful stuff, if you happen to be an amoeba.”

He also criticized Republican lawmakers like Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford (“the Republican senator from Oklahoma believes that Congress’ job is simply to ‘solidify’ that which passes out of the executive branch, as if the Senate were a dose of legislative Imodium”) and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (“that mighty Hyperion of South Carolina, thundered: ‘I am somewhat concerned.’”)

Williamson concluded that Trump is not to blame for Levin, Thune, Johnson, Graham, Lankford and others behaving in an abject manner. He instead blames them.

“That is the ironic outcome of setting aside one’s principles—and morality and patriotism—to pursue power vicariously through a corrupt demagogue such as Trump: You lose your reputation but don’t get the power you thought you were going to get—you abandon your honor for nothing, or almost nothing: maybe a little bit of money for the broadcasters and a little more time on the public teat for the time-servers,” Williamson said.

He added, “Proximity to power creates an illusion of sharing in that power, of being part of some great grand thing: I have seen men I thought were serious receive a mere text message from the White House and squeal like a 4-year-old girl who has been presented with a real live unicorn on her birthday. It is unseemly.” In contrast to the ancient Roman senator Cato the Younger, who committed suicide rather than live under the ascending tyranny of the new emperor Julius Caesar, “Republicans are pretending to be surprised and put out by all this.”