The point of the Republican party? To stroke the ego of Trump

What is the point of the Republican party?

This isn’t a flip question. It’s one prompted by the last four months of grappling with the fallout of the bloody insurrection on Capitol Hill, and by the last four years of grappling with the fallout of installing a fascist in the White House.

Related: Liz Cheney’s ousting proves the ‘big lie’ is the Republican party’s religion

So, for real: what does the GOP stand for? Apart from trying to seize back power, what does it want to do?

The answer, as Liz Cheney has learned, is to pander to the ego of a single Florida resident who has no obvious or coherent political purpose.

This might just explain why the party has been struggling so hard to respond to the last four months of the most tenuous Democratic control in Washington.

The Biden team has not commanded the nation’s capital from a position of strength because of LBJ-like powers of persuasion, Democratic unity or structural majorities. They have succeeded because Republicans sorely lack – as George HW Bush used to put it – the vision thing.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the GOP stood for small government, or big business, or at least big churches, or sometimes the little guy. They were for standing up to foreign enemies and domestic taxes.

There was, for what it was worth, a contest of ideas and worldviews between the two sides of the aisle: between the notion that government could do big things, and that government should only do small things – that markets and businesses either needed regulation, or were marvelously efficient at solving all our problems.

After four years of Donald Trump, that is no longer the world we’re living in. To be fair, three decades’ worth of upheaval – the colossal failures of the war on terror, the financial crisis, a historic pandemic, the climate crisis and a technological revolution – may have made matters worse.

But here we are nonetheless at a point where the Grand Old Party has shrunk into a small old cult of personality, willing to twist and turn to the whims of its sociopathic former leader.

Consistency meant nothing inside the cult. More billions of spending on a nonsensical border wall? The deficit hawks said no problem. More bullying business leaders by presidential tweet? The capitalist caucus said bring it on. More cozying up to the leaders of Russia, China and even North Korea? The defense hawks thought that sounded fine. Paying off porn stars with campaign dollars? The party of family values barely blushed.

Each one of these big and small sellouts brought the party to the point where it fired Liz Cheney from the House leadership on Tuesday for stating the obvious: Trump lost the election last year and stoked an insurrection to save face.

Cheney is a conservative’s conservative, who voted with Trump 92.9% of the time – more than the party’s Senate leader, Mitch McConnell. But Cheney knows that if we cannot agree on democratic principles like free and fair elections, or the constitution, we cannot begin to debate the principles or policies that separate Republicans from Democrats.

“I am a conservative Republican and the most conservative of conservative principles is reverence for the rule of law. The electoral college has voted. More than 60 state and federal courts, including multiple judges he appointed, have rejected the former president’s claims,” she said on the House floor on Tuesday.

“Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the constitution. Our duty is clear. Every one of us who has sworn the oath must act to prevent the unraveling of our democracy. This is not about policy. This is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans. Remaining silent, and ignoring the lie, emboldens the liar.”

Clearly most Republican members of Congress don’t care – mostly because they think they are on a winning track. There is a near-universal expectation that the Republicans will take back at least half of Congress next year, and that its lickspittle House leader Kevin McCarthy, will finally rise from his semi-prone position to become speaker.

But while incumbent presidents tend to lose power in their first midterms, there is nothing pre-ordained about this prognosis. It just gets repeated so often, it feels that way.

There was a president, not so long ago, who bucked that trend. His name was George W Bush and his vice-president was a man named Dick Cheney, father of Liz. While their opponents wanted to re-litigate the disputed election of 2000, Bush and Cheney were focused on supposedly keeping the country safe.

Yes, the 2002 elections were the first after the 9/11 attacks, but the framing was devastatingly effective: are you with the president’s party, or with the terrorists? It wasn’t fair or accurate, but it was simple and successful enough to pick up seats in both the House and Senate.

It’s not hard to imagine a similar election for Democrats next year, the first after Covid is finally crushed. Are you for or against the pandemic? Are you for or against building back better? Are you for or against investing in bridges, or childcare, or community college?

Instead, the Republican party is determined to answer its own burning question about whether you are for or against Donald Trump.

This may satisfy the legions of hardcore Trump fans, but they clearly do not represent a winning majority. So far, their broader attempts to portray Joe Biden as a scary socialist have failed: Biden’s approval ratings are much higher than Trump’s, and that includes positive ratings from almost half of Republicans.

Where does the GOP end up? Much like its sidekick for the last several decades, the National Rifle Association. The NRA has been a fearsomely effective political machine, blocking any attempt at gun safety laws by mobilizing just 5 million members. Along the way, it became a cult of personality and corruption revolving around its leader, Wayne LaPierre.

Now, after a failed legal gambit to declare bankruptcy, it faces the full force of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who is suing to shut the NRA down. “The rot runs deep,” she said on Tuesday. “No one is above the law. Not even one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the country.”

The rot runs deep across the right. Powerful political parties and organizations can suddenly seem brittle after years of hollowing out. Americans might love big personalities, but they love the law even more.