Charlie Sykes: “Even after the lunacy of the past four years, the GOP’s recent behavior is jaw-dropping, an extraordinary transformation that feels like the Republican Party has experienced some sort of bizarre brain swap. After years as the pro-business party, Republicans have formed an anti-corporate chorus. Republicans who only recently railed about ‘cancel culture,’ now loudly demand the cancellation of critics, opponents and politically incorrect foes. The GOP’s enemies list now ranges from Major League Baseball, to Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, ViacomCBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS and Merck, not to mention state election officials who refused to help Donald Trump overturn the election, and the handful of sitting Republicans who had the temerity to vote to impeach him.”

“During the Trump era, we’ve already seen how Republicans who once embraced free trade are now committed protectionists. The party that insisted that ‘character matters’ in the 1990s, decided that nothing mattered after Trump came along. Republicans cared deeply about deficits and debts… until they lost interest. A party that prided itself on its patriotism has made its peace with a seditious insurrection, and now finds itself attacking the national pastime. It’s a head-shaking display of ideological malleability that seems like a rejection of every principle that conservatives held dear. The reality is that the GOP’s working-class war against corporate America is neither a war, nor working class, nor especially anti-corporate. Like almost everything else in Republican politics these days, the GOP-corporate slap fight is more performative than substantive. And everyone involved knows it.”