When House Republicans first passed their form of health care with the American Health Care Act (AHCA) back in May, it was the first sign that "Trumpism" had played a part in the legislative process. In the recent defeat of Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) who lost the Alabama primary against Roy Moore on Tuesday, senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway told CNN that Roy Moore's primary win was "actually a vindication for Trumpism."
Trump offers protection to immoral violators of the law
Since Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, the ways in which he operates has been under constant observation and scrutiny.
At the same time, Republicans in the Congress and those campaigning for the party nationwide, are mimicking his style to win elections. The implications of what happens to politicians who challenge long and well-established morals no longer exists, and Roy Moore's win is yet further confirmation of that.
As if there were actually a movement of deliberate coincidences in how similar Roy Moore is with Trump's brand, Moore has himself been dismissed twice from the bench as an Alabama Supreme Court Justice. The first time he was removed was in 2003 for refusing to remove the Ten Commandments monument and again in 2016, both for defying court orders. This is similar to President Trump's former national security adviser Gen.
Michael Flynn, who was fired by former President Obama when he was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency back in 2014.
A somewhat similar and more recent situation is with former Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Joe Arpaio, who lost a re-election last year. Arpaio was sheriff of his county for 24 years, but his legal problems began in 2005 when he started taking a stand against illegal immigration.
The result would be that he was found to be in contempt of the court, only for President Trump to use his presidential pardoning power to initiate his first pardon for Arpaio to prevent him from going to jail.
The rise of 'Trumpism'
With Arpaio, he was vindicated. With Michael Flynn, he was still qualified to return to a position of power when Trump re-hired him as his national security adviser and with Roy Moore, he too would be rewarded by winning a primary.
Using these three examples, it would appear that there are no real consequences for being morally or even lawfully corrupt under a Trump presidency.
When the House passed the AHCA, they did not care if the bill made any sense, all that mattered was that it passed, which is "Trumpism", breaking the rules just to get something passed. As far as legislating, it would be a waste of time since the AHCA never really evolved into a law that could be passed. But the House continues to show that they are ready to move forward with the President's agenda, which requires Trumpism to succeed. In this case, Kellyanne Conway is certainly correct, that Trumpism is spreading and the 2018 mid-terms will no doubt bring a flood of it.