Faustian Bargain
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“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
~Mark 8:36
We all know the story of Faust — the man who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for power and a few good years. It may be an old tale, but it’s a classic playing out right now in Washington DC. For years, Republicans like Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and J.D. Vance called Donald Trump a con man, a fraud, a danger to democracy.
J.D Vance referred to Trump as “cultural heroin” and called him a “total fraud” who “doesn’t actually care about folks.” Lindsey Graham called Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” and Rubio called him “unfit for office.”
But then the devil came collecting — and every single one of them fell right in line. At least Faust got something out of his deal. These guys sold their souls only for a cabinet seat, a round of golf with the Felon and least prestigious job in DC: Vice- President.
And let’s be clear about what they gave up. These weren’t anonymous backbenchers — these were people who had spent careers wrapping themselves in the Constitution, talking about honor, duty, and the rule of law. Marco Rubio was at one time viewed as “the future of the Republican Party.” JD Vance served in Iraq. Lindsey Graham was supposedly John McCain’s friend, for God’s sake. McCain, the guy who was actually a war hero — not someone who got five deferments and called POWs losers because they got caught. But the moment Trump was in charge, Graham was on the first flight to Mar-a-Lago. Mephistopheles must be laughing. He spent centuries trying to corrupt men of principle. Turns out all he needed was a golf course in Florida and a threat to primary you.
So what did they get for their souls? That’s the part that would make Faust weep. At least he got knowledge, power, youth — Mephistopheles delivered the goods. These guys sold out for the privilege of sitting in a cabinet meeting while Trump takes credit for everything and throws them under the bus the moment the polls shift. Ask Kristi Noem how that worked out for her. Ask Pam Bondi, who bent the entire Justice Department into a pretzel trying to help the man with his revenge tour and to release criminals on the street.
Even Mike Pence — the man who prayed with Trump, defended Trump, stood by Trump through two impeachments — ended up with a mob chanting “hang Mike Pence” outside the Capitol while Trump watched television and did nothing. Beware what you leak to The Atlantic, JD Vance. Remember what happened to Pence.
To be fair there were some true conservatives, who saw what was coming right from the very beginning, when Trump rode down that escalator and started calling Mexicans rapists. They stood up and stood firm — men like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. And there have been some religious leaders, who are willing to point out the hypocrisy so-called Christians supporting a false idol like Trump. As Russell Moore said, “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
And there have been some conservative attorneys who are willing to call out the illegality of this administration - men like J. Michael Luttig, Ben Wittes, David French, George Conway and others. And there were also others who wrote the op-eds, they went on the Sunday shows, they built entire organizations — The Bulwark, The Dispatch, The Lincoln Project, Republicans for the Rule of Law — dedicated to sounding the alarm before most people were paying attention.
But what did they get for their integrity and courage? They got called RINOs. They got primaried. They got death threats in their inboxes and Trump supporters showing up outside their houses. MAGA media dismissed them as elitists and globalists and losers who couldn’t accept that their party had moved on. Fox News stopped booking them. Their former colleagues stopped returning their calls. They were shunned at the same conferences where they used to give the keynote. Some were even banished from their places of worship.
And there were the ones who came around later, when the evidence was impossible to ignore — Liz Cheney, who voted with Trump eighty percent of the time before January 6th woke her up, and Adam Kinzinger, who sat on the January 6th committee and told the truth when telling the truth cost him his career. Both of them are out of Congress now, driven out by the very party they spent their lives serving.
But for every Cheney and Kinzinger, there are a dozen others who spent have spent years muttering about Trump in private, writing anonymous op-eds about the adults in the room, and congratulating themselves for their quiet resistance — right up until they decided their career prospects mattered more than their convictions. The pretend Never-Trumpers who became Late-Never-Trumpers who became Just This Once Trumpers who became Full MAGA. At least Faust made his deal all at once. These folks needed a few election cycles to get there.
But let’s not get lost in the past when there’s plenty of fresh souls being traded right now. Take Todd Blanche — a man who was a respected federal prosecutor, the kind of lawyer who built a career on the idea that nobody is above the law. Then he signed up to defend Donald Trump, has twisted himself into knots arguing that a convicted felon was fit for the presidency. What’s he doing now? Arresting the former director of the FBI for posting an image of seashells.
And there’s Doug Burgum, the mild-mannered governor of North Dakota who spent exactly five minutes running against Trump in the primary before deciding the smart move was to genuflect and hope for a cabinet seat. He got Interior Secretary. Since he took the reins, the department has lost roughly 11,000 employees. The Interior Department has been using “elevated review” to intentionally create backlogs, aiming to stop wind and solar projects on federal lands. High-ranking appointees have faced scrutiny, including allegations of withholding ethics disclosures and having financial ties to projects under their jurisdiction, such as a major lithium mine in Nevada. Leaked documents revealed plans to remove references to climate change and revise historical facts at national park sites to minimize the impacts of fossil fuels. Staffing shortages have hindered the management of national parks.
And then there’s Marco Rubio — little Marco, as the devil himself once called him — the man who said Trump was a “con artist” who couldn’t be trusted with the nuclear codes, is now Secretary of State, handing Trump the nuclear codes every single morning. As I asked recently, who is speaking for us?
At least Faust had the self-awareness to know he’d made a deal. These guys are still out there pretending they didn’t. In Goethe’s telling, Faust gets his moment of clarity too late. The devil comes to collect and there’s nothing left to do but reckon with what you traded away and why. The tragedy isn’t that Faust made the deal — it’s that he knew better and did it anyway.
Sound familiar? Blanche knows better. Burgum knows better. Rubio absolutely knows better — he looked into the camera and told us exactly who Trump was. As Chris Christie said recently, they’re all lemmings. When the history books are written about this era, the question won’t be what Trump did. We already know what Trump is doing to destroy our country. The question will be what happened to the people who were supposed to stop him, who had every opportunity to stand up, and then decided that a title and a corner office was worth more than the country they swore to protect.
“I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.” ~Liz Cheney
Mephistopheles didn’t have to work very hard this time. Because here’s the thing about making a deal with the devil — the devil always collects.
And the rest of us are left paying the tab.
Thought for the day in honor of his birthday…
“There are times when silence becomes complicity.”
~Ariel Dorfman
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