If Donald Trump knows how to do anything, it’s destroy a business. And while the Republican National Committee might not be a “business” in the conventional sense, Trump and his family are doing their level best to bring their special magic to the operation. Yup, they’re gonna burn the whole place down.

On Tuesday night, The Washington Post broke the news that prospective new RNC hires were being given a new loyalty test.

In recent days, Trump advisers have quizzed multiple employees who had worked in key 2024 states—and who are reapplying for jobs—about their views on the last presidential election, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private interviews and discussions. The interviews have been conducted mostly virtually, as the applicants are based in key swing states.

“Was the 2020 election stolen?” one prospective employee recalled being asked in a room with two top Trump advisers.

The 2020 election was not stolen, of course. This lie was propagated by Donald Trump, a collection of now-indicted lawyers, aides, and hangers-on, as well as dozens of Republican members of Congress to delegitimize or even invalidate the election’s results. Through investigations and numerous court filings, we now know who constructed the lies, who spread them, what they were meant to achieve, and how the key players knew there was no damn evidence for any of it.

So prospective RNC hires were given this litmus test, according to the Post. It suggests that if the hires won’t parrot pro-sedition propaganda on Dear Leader's behalf, there's no room for them in Republicanism. And despite a bit of generic bluster from an RNC spokesperson, nobody's much denying that.

It’s just the latest episode in the Trump team’s quest to both grift and disembowel the Republican Party. Trump helped toss former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel aside earlier this year, even though McDaniel had been the loyalest of toadies for years, likely ruining future career opportunities for her in the process. The new RNC leaders are the conspiracy-promoting Michael Whatley and Trump's conspiracy-promoting daughter-in-law, Lara Trump.

The new loyalty tests may in fact be merely a natural result of putting unqualified and not-particularly-bright conspiracy theorists in charge. Lara Trump may have stepped onto the scene as yet another of Trump's various, ever-grifting, off-brand Ivankas, but she's rapidly made a name for herself as—I think this bears repeating for emphasis—an unqualified and not-particularly-bright conspiracy theorist.

The new leadership team immediately purged RNC staffers while announcing that its operations would be functionally merged with Trump's presidential campaign, moving much of committee operations down to Palm Beach, Florida, the site of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, so as to better bask in his crooked glow. The laid-off staffers permitted to reapply for their old jobs appear to be undergoing these same loyalty tests, so it's fair to conclude that the new RNC will consist entirely of people willing to back Trump's authoritarian agenda with whatever addled and vicious lies he invents. 

At the same time, Trump and his family appear too focused on scraping money out of everyone they meet to care about the outcome of all this. His moves to gather up the RNC's tattered shreds and absorb them into his campaign is mainly meant to siphon off money for his own legal bills. He and his allies have been pretty damn open about funneling RNC funds to Trump’s Save America PAC, the vehicle paying those bills.

The end effect of all of this will remain the same. 

One effect, however, is already apparent. A second Washington Post article, published on Thursday, covers Republicans’ frantic efforts to keep their early voting and mail-in voting operations alive even as Trump continues to publicly bash mail-in voting as "totally corrupt." But these efforts appear largely aspirational for the time being. The Post quotes new RNC Chair Michael Whatley vowing that the party will pour money into such operations—but the RNC itself is running dangerously low on cash, in part because of the diversion of funds into auxiliary accounts that Trump can dip into to pay his many legal bills.

How important is mail-in voting to Trump’s chances to reinstall himself in the White House? The Post has a whole lotta quotes from people who think Republicans can’t do without it.

“We hear it at the doors, some Republicans are still very reluctant now to drop their ballots in the mail,” said Jon Seaton, an Arizona Republican strategist who advised the state’s Republican senator John McCain. “President Trump clearly has a great deal of influence with Republican voters, so his support of mail-in voting will have a real impact on how many Republicans ultimately return their ballots by mail.”

And:

Cody Hall, a GOP strategist who is a senior adviser to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), said Trump’s rhetoric against mail-in ballots hurt him in the state in 2020, and “it’s totally possible it cost him the last election.” Hall said he also hasn’t seen signs yet of a dedicated GOP campaign to encourage early voting in Georgia this year.

And:

“It will be a huge factor in Pennsylvania,” said David Urban, a Trump ally who ran the former president’s efforts in Pennsylvania in 2016. “If we’re not playing, we do so at our own peril.”

Mail-in voting could well make the difference in multiple swing states, but the RNC then wouldn’t be able to devote that money to Trump’s legal problems or general greed. And how’s he going to feel about that? Again, the Post can rely only on aspirational claims from staffers.

A person close to Trump said the hope is that Trump will largely leave the topic alone publicly and not sabotage the efforts.

Oh yeah, buddy, good luck with that. There's a string of judges who haven't been able to get him to shut up, even with the threat of jail time hanging of his head, but I'm sure aides will be able to stop him from bashing his own critical-to-success get-out-the-vote operations by, uh, reminding him not to. Maybe shove a cake in front of his face and hope it takes him past the election to finish eating it?

This is not a legitimate party anymore. It is an organized crime ring aspiring to bring about a post-democratic government—and Republican voters can't plausibly claim they don't know that's exactly what they're voting for.

The grifting, the gutting, the purging, the purity tests—where will all that end up for the organization responsible for electing Republicans? I’m not sure Trump cares. It’s only about him.

Republished with permission from Daily Kos.