Many families have a grandfather or an uncle who, in his prime, was the patriarch, strength and compass of the family.

Advice has been sought and listened to.

He was treated with the utmost respect and deference.

But as the years passed, its power waned, its sharpness dulled, and its warnings began to sound archaic.

The family reorganized.

Then another man or woman became the boss, and so was the grandfather or uncle degradedwithout any formal announcement but out of family inertia, to a kind of elderly emeritus.

The family still loves and honors him, but ignores or shuts him out.

It was an integral part of the family’s trajectory, but now it’s just an accessory to their future.

This is what is happening Donald Trump in the Republican Party, a dynamic underscored by the disastrous battle for the presidency of the House of Representatives.

In essence, Trump is being put to pasture.

Not only is there no love between him and Mitch McConnellSenate Minority Leader (in September, Trump accused McConnell of hating him), but rather kevin mccarthyhis pick for Speaker of the House was hampered by opposition from some of Trump’s most ardent — and outrageous — acolytes.

Trump’s appeals to the reluctant did not immediately quell their opposition.

Before one of the presidential ballots, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a woman who once said Trump was called of God to run for president and had been “ordained to that office,” chastised Trump and McCarthy.

Giving Trump instructions instead of accepting his own, he told his fellow House Republicans:

“Let’s work together. Let’s stop using slander and election tactics to turn people against us.

Even when my favorite president calls us and tells us we have to end it. I think it must actually be the other way around:

The president has to tell Kevin McCarthy that “Sir, you don’t have the votes and it’s time to retire.”

Speaking of condemnation with faint praise. He suggested that Trump wasn’t even acting on his own beliefs, but that House Republican leaders were telling him what to do. He sounded laudatory, even endearing, but he was a harsh rebuke, as we Southerners say:

“Bless your heart”, with a smile but a drop of contempt.

At one point during the vote, Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida almost mockingly named Trump as spokesperson.

(Gaetz has been a fierce defender of Trump, but he recently tweeted after Trump urged him to align with McCarthy:

“Backing McCarthy is the worst HR decision President Trump has ever made. Sad!”

Trump has suffered a staggering losing streak, the latter seen as voters they rejected many of the candidates he advocated during the midterm elections, and the spokesperson battle, which ended with McCarthy relinquishing so much power that he was essentially a spokesperson in name only, was another loss for Trump, because he revealed the fact that his devotees no longer follow your directions mindlessly.

Trump knows better than anyone that loss lasts in a person like a rancid smell.

Trump, like every other president, has had his moment, but now the sun is setting on that moment.

The country and its own party are walking away from him

It’s shrinking in full view.

But if Trump isn’t now the leader of his party, who is?

By default, even if decreased, you keep the title, even without the power.

So, in a sense, the Republican Party is a runaway wagon.

Nobody totally controls it.

The party became so anti-establishment and pro-iconoclastic that it even went so far as to reject the institutional procedure and professionalism in office.

The “kick the slackers” mentality can only work for so long before you run out of slackers and realize you have no one left to replace them except the slackers.

People who have paralyzed Domestic operations are the offspring of Trump’s chaos.

In Greek mythology, Cronus, who had overthrown his father, Ouranos, learned that one of his sons was destined to do the same to him.

So he ate them all.

But her sixth son, Zeus, appeared and was hidden by Zeus’s mother.

As Zeus grew older, he forced Cronus to disown his brothers (yuck, I know), and together the sons of Cronus overthrew their father.

Even the Republican Party and Trump himself are trapped in this vicious circle:

They overthrow their party “establishment” every few years just to become the establishment to be overthrown.

The party has completely lost sight of the values ​​of wisdom and service, dues payment and climbing.

For him, every cycle is a revolution and a war.

In the long run, this is bad for the party and for the country.

But, in the short term, it’s even worse for Trump.

His charges come to either overthrow him or put him to pasture, and there is little he can do to stop them.

c.2023 The New York Times Society