Opinion - ‘Moral majority’ no more: The Republican Party’s criminal desperation

If you want to see the face of real Republican desperation, look no further than President Trump's local Republican Party.

Republican leaders in Palm Beach, Fla. are so fearful of a November blue-wave election that they are considering extreme steps to protect their hold on power — including refusing to cut ties with an elected official arrested for alleged child sex abuse .

Palm Beach County Clerk of Courts Mike Caruso told the Miami Herald he still "intends to win" his race, despite being arrested in August and subsequently suspended from office. State officials swiftly withdrew their support from Caruso's re-election campaign, but the Palm Beach Republicans still have Caruso's back.

It is enough to make any decent Floridian gag.

It was fitting that the Miami Herald broke its story on Oct. 5, the same day that disgraced former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) died . Hastert spent 15 months in federal prison for violating banking laws in an effort to cover up his admitted history of sexually abusing boys as young as 14.

The only difference is that Republicans had the self-respect to cut ties with Hastert when his own scandal broke. The same cannot be said for a party still shamelessly clinging to Caruso.

After decades spent selling out their values in order to preserve their power, Republicans have shed so much of their basic decency that they finally have no guiding principles left. The rise of Trumpism and its anything-goes view of ethics proved to be the final nail in the coffin of a party that was already well on its way to moral hollowness. One can only hope a drubbing in November will give Republican leaders cause to reflect on the ineffective and self-serving abomination their party has become.

Speaking to a room full of conservative donors earlier this year, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson made clear that the only thing keeping corrupt Republicans out of jail was the fact that he personally " run[s] the protection program " in Washington. "I'll take care of you," Johnson promised his financiers. So much for subtlety.

Under the new values-free party, any candidate meets their non-existent standard for office, so long as they say they are a Republican. Holding power is all that matters, even if Republicans themselves have admitted for nearly a year now that they are unwilling and unable to use that power in ways that improve the lives of regular Americans.

The domestic abuse scandal that recently consumed Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) offered Republicans one last opportunity to rediscover their consciences, but the lure of power prevailed once again. Court documents revealed a mountain of serious allegations against Miller, from throwing hot water on his ex-wife Emily Moreno's chest to holding a gun to her head and even fracturing his daughter's collarbone.

In one court document, Miller's 2-year-old daughter turned to her mother and remarked, "Daddy kill you."

Miller responded with trademark Trumpian sleaze. In addition to denying the allegations, he publicly suggested he would release damaging personal information about his former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio). He also defiantly refused to end his re-election bid, reasoning (correctly, it turned out) that his fellow Republicans would ignore even the most extreme allegations of abuse if it meant holding on to a critical House seat.

Last month, House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) reiterated that Miller "is our nominee right now," though she hopes "the allegations weren't true." The House Speaker has also remained staunchly in line behind Miller after the White House urged Republican lawmakers to swallow their morals and shut up about Miller's problems.

"We're gonna support our nominees," Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters said in an interview with NewsNation back in August. "We need to make sure we hold the majorities."

For what? What good is a legislative majority to a party that believes in nothing and politicians who tout family values messaging while standing behind candidates accused of child molestation and jaw-dropping levels of domestic abuse?

For a party that is as morally and legally compromised as today's Republicans, a governing majority is only useful as a tool to protect their own members from meaningful accountability. It offers nothing to the rest of us but a textbook example of how the corrupt turn government into a tool of their own impunity.

The 119th Congress has worked less and passed fewer bills than any Congress in more than 50 years. So much effort has been dedicated to protecting politicians like Miller and Trump that it appears Republicans ran out of time to do anything else. In one final, flagrant "screw you" to the very idea of public accountability, Johnson even recessed his do-nothing House until after Election Day — all to avoid bringing to the floor articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Trump, Johnson and the MAGA Republicans in Congress have screamed for months that a Democratic wave election would bring with it a wave of Republican arrests. If Democrats do win back power in November, they'll find no shortage of deserving perps.

Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies .