The Republican Party is an irredeemable sewer

 I wanted so much to believe the South Carolina primary was going to turn out otherwise, but alas:

South Carolina Republican voters on Tuesday split on two US House incumbents who defied former President Donald Trump, renominating Rep. Nancy Mace but souring on Rep. Tom Rice, the first of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment last year to fall in a primary.

State Rep. Russell Fry, who was endorsed by Trump, will defeat Rice in the 7th District, CNN projects.

Despite facing a severe backlash over his impeachment vote, including death threats in its aftermath, Rice did not back off his criticism of Trump or decide, like some of his impeachment-backing GOP colleagues, to leave office at the end of his term rather than face voters again. A staunch conservative and Trump supporter before the insurrection, the five-term congressman instead took his case out on the campaign trail. Republicans in his 7th District rejected it – and delivered the nomination to Fry, who will clear the 50% mark to avoid a runoff.

Rice’s ouster underscores Trump’s enduring popularity with most Republicans, especially in conservative districts like the one Rice has represented since 2013. But results in the 1st District demonstrated that the former President’s hold is not entirely firm. 

What happened in Nevada bolsters the case made in the above paragraph:

Jim Marchant, a former state lawmaker and leading proponent of Trump’s lies about widespread election fraud, won the Republican primary for the Nevada secretary of state’s office Tuesday – adding the Silver State to the growing list of those where election deniers are positioning themselves to take over the election machinery ahead of the 2024 presidential race.

Marchant is seeking to replace Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican who has repeatedly said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, but who is barred by term limits from seeking reelection.

There are a few Republican office-holders - Asa Hutchinson, Ben Sasse, and, of course, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger - who are principled, admirable, and reliably conservative. Kinzinger's bowing out of government service at the end of his current term, and Cheney's in the fight of her life in Wyoming. As for the other two, it remains to be seen how they fare going into the future in a party that, as Cheney has said, has become a cult. At the moment, their having any influence and impact looks like a Sisyphean task.

I know there are still those arguing for staying within the party and striving to wrest it free from this infection and get it back to a path in keeping with its laudatory heritage.

I can't see it. Readers are invited to convince me otherwise, but your case had better be damn compelling. 

And this brings us to a very grim juncture, since the Democrats have utterly failed to provide us with an alternative.