Adrastos covers this particular subject quite well around this here blog, but I wanted to add to the general theme that what we are seeing from Republicans these days is not conservative but something else entirely.

This is not to say that Donald Trump isn’t the logical destination of a path the American right started out on decades ago, going back to the days of Spiro Agnew’s and Richard Nixon’s corruption, and maybe even the “genteel” racism of William F. Buckley. Jerry Falwell, AIDS jokes at Reagan press conferences, Iran-Contra, Pat Buchanan, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, America becoming a torture nation under Dubya, Rick Santorum, the Tea Party, ugly “Obama is not a citizen” racism, all of this led to MAGA. I had GOP relatives throughout my life who were racist and had all the empathy for less-fortunate folks of a lamprey, and thought Reagan’s wink-wink statements about welfare moms buying t-bones and Caddys were brave truth-telling.

But at the same time, not all were shady, hateful bastards in the Republican Party of yore, and there really were people who called themselves “conservative” because they believed in helping people in different ways than I. Those days might as well be back in the Flintsones’ era, and I will also add that the Republican Party didn’t use to be a crime family.

But here we are. What was “conservatism” has now become “mafiaism.” Think I am being unfair? Uh, find me a past president who ran protection rackets like this one:

The US government is now a mafia organization.

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 2025-12-11T18:08:33.003Z

An offer you can’t refuse that would make Don Corleone or Tony Soprano blush. Nice state you got there, Indiana GOP. Be a shame if something happened to it. So, you’d better get in line with the boss.

I’ve written about other examples of the Trump Crime Family going after other institutions, like universities and law firms, and some of them have folded like the casino manager being threatened by Joe Pesci in Casino. The Trump Family extorts millions from these cowards.

All this makes a lot of sense. Trump has a history of being a mafia wannabe. His connections to the mob are well-documented.

There is next to no pushback from the Republican Party. Fox News celebrates it. Right-wing influencers think it’s all cool as hell, a real manly thing to do. Therefore, the Republican Party has become a crime syndicate. Conservativism has become mafiaism.

I guess the bright spot in all of this is Donny T. is about as healthy as Vito Corleone, so perhaps nature frees us from our Trump nightmare. Of course, there will be a fight among the MAGAts over who will be the successor, the next pestilent godfather of the organization. You can see the jostling for position beginning already.

The parallels to the mob just keep on coming.

The last word goes to Alabama 3.