If there is one lesson that Republican politicians should have learned well by now, it’s that Donald Trump will blithely betray those who have sold their political souls for him the moment it suits his self-interest. Yet they keep not learning that lesson. The latest failing grade goes to Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler. Hartzler last week privately requested Trump’s endorsement in her U.S. Senate bid, only to have him publicly announce that she’d asked and that he’d refused. Ouch.
Hartzler has seldom been a publicly enthusiastic cheerleader for Trump’s various outrages like some congressional Republicans have, but her voting record was in line with Trump’s positions more than 95% of the time, according to a fivethirtyeight.com analysis. More importantly, Hartzler (like most of her Republican colleagues) voted against both of Trump’s thoroughly justified impeachments. And, most shamefully, she supported his attempt to overturn the voters’ decisions on Jan. 6, 2021, so he could retain power after an election he lost.
In short, while Hartzler didn’t bang the MAGA drum as loudly as many, she certainly was never among the sliver of Republicans who courageously put country above power as a dangerous would-be autocrat commandeered their party.
Which should make her at least a viable Trump endorsee. Yet when Hartzler called Trump Friday morning to request his endorsement, he not only declined but — with typical, classless cruelty — humiliated her for asking, publicizing their private conversation and declaring her politically finished.
“You can forget about Vicky Hartzler for Senate from the Great State of Missouri,” he wrote later Friday on Truth Social, the alternative social media site he helped create. “She called me this morning asking for my Endorsement, … (but) I don’t think she has what it takes to take on the Radical Left Democrats … the Fake News Media and of course the deceptive & foolish RINOs,” or Republicans in Name Only.
Double ouch. And this was aimed at a reliable political ally who, unlike former Vice President Mike Pence and so many other Trump enablers-turned-victims, hadn’t done anything in particular to draw Trump’s ire. He could have turned Hartzler down quietly and said nothing publicly about it. But like a cat with a moth, he just couldn’t resist inflicting a little torture.
Unlike Hartzler, fellow GOP Senate candidate Eric Greitens has been explicit in courting the angry MAGA vote, which might pay off for him. Trump last week called Greitens “smart and tough” — leaving out the apparently irrelevant fact that Greitens is a disgraced ex-governor who has been credibly accused of abusing his ex-wife, children and mistress. Greitens’ violent campaign rhetoric and imagery presumably appeals to Trump’s twisted definition of “tough.”
Though, after this, even Greitens might want to tread lightly and wait for a royal decree, rather than impertinently asking for it. With Trump, there is always more room under that bus.
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