When the Republican Party has lost 30 state legislative special elections in a row since President Donald Trump’s re-election, when all the governor elections in 2025 were also lost, and a historic number of Republicans in Congress have opted not to seek re-election, it has to make you think that the Republican Party must be “tanking.”

Tanking? In basketball tanking – which has been much discussed lately – is when an NBA team “tries to lose” so it is in a better position to land a superstar collegiate player in the draft. When teams know they cannot win, they tank.

Maybe Trump and the Republicans have come to that conclusion. For Trump to show and prove to America that a two-party system does not work would allow Trump to gain the support over time from the public and get the Senate to get rid of the filibuster. This would inadvertently make Trump a dictator as he would have one-party control like Adolf Hitler had in Nazi Germany. Tanking is a form of orchestrating what you want, despite it being against the norm, to achieve another self-serving objective.

There is a second path toward Trump becoming a king. Just make elections like those in “Banana Republics” – very predictable for the incumbents. Could the Save America Act be that vehicle? Regardless, I find it hard to see how it is

constitutional, even if passed by Congress. There are a number of ideas that can pass and have passed Congress. They are sound and reasonable proposals, but have been deemed illegal because they violate the Constitution. Here are four that quickly come to mind:

1. Balance budget bill

2. Line-item veto bill

3. Against desecration of our flag bill

4. School prayer bill

Despite the virtues of these bills, the Supreme Court has ruled that they all violate the Constitution by infringing on the powers of the branches of government or they violate one’s individual freedom. In order for any of them to become the law of the land they would need to be offered as an amendment to the Constitution. It is difficult but not impossible to achieve this goal. I would add the Save America Act to that list of measures that should only see the light of day per a constitutional amendment. The Constitution is very clear who has the powers to regulate elections, and it is not the federal government. And that does not change even if the Republicans in Congress say so. It can change, like the other four measures, via a constitutional amendment.

So, why pursue it? Well, Trump loves for matters to go to the courts. At the very least, court proceedings delay things. The election will be in November. If election rules are in limbo, then Trump can become king. He can merely assert his control via “emergency powers” – translation, doing it because I’m king and you are not. We are truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Trump has vowed not to sign anything else into law until he gets the SAVE America bill passed. Congress is looking at utilizing a second reconciliation measure to sneak it through. This would be totally inappropriate, as you cannot legislate in a reconciliation measure. We pass it and there is a likelihood of unfairness or we get chaos.

Back to the tanking strategy: In my clear attempt at satire, a politician must be tanking, is completely incompetent or simply not focused to allow for the following:

1. Increasing the costs, making America less affordable which has resulted in a

record number of personal bankruptcies

2. Creating unwanted and undeserved chaos on the streets of America.

3. Breaking the campaign promise of the full release of the Epstein files.

4. Breaking the promise not to wage political retribution.

5. Breaking the promise not to engage in regime change.

6. Breaking the promise not to start new wars.

In January, before the war, Iran did not have nuclear weapons and in April Iran still does not have nuclear weapons. Ok. This is starting to sound like our failed search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq decades ago. Here too we were attempting to get rid of something that did not exist. Americans, especially independents, are not being hoodwinked, nor are they gullible. A recent poll shows Trump with the worst approval rating deficit among independents than even President Richard Nixon had prior to his abrupt departure from office. Trump is at -45% and Nixon was at -36%. Some prominent Republican women in Congress have also decided to pack it in.

Oh, well, why not just include both genders, all incumbent Republicans? More are leaving via not seeking election than at any time in recent memory. Prior to Trump there was a record number of black Republicans in Congress.

He outwardly attacked the first black Republican woman, the late-Rep. Mia Love of Utah. Next year Congress will be down to just one black Republican in Congress (South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott) and for only the second time in 36

years none in the House. Black Republican members of Congress have decided for one reason or another not to be part of the GOP in Washington anymore. Yes, this is personal for me. In 1990 I was the first black Republican to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in nearly 60 years. The Trump administration has the fewest number of Black people in the top 100 positions than any past administration in decades or since the “Leave it to Beaver” period in the 1950s.The Trump administration has refused to interview qualified black engineers at a recruiting forum. It also “strongly” suggested (in Trumpian fashion) that major corporations should not interview black engineers

at the forum either.

Furthermore, the Defense Department last week refused to promote two well- qualified black men and two well-qualified women to the rank of general – the reasons for which seem to be purely subjective. And let’s not forget Trump’s

admission that black people should have “black jobs.” And when asked this past week by the United Nation to condemn slave trafficking as one of the worst events in the history of mankind, the Trump administration, unlike nearly the entire world, voted “no.”

It is so clear that Americans are so much better than our current “throwback” leaders. So, are you convinced yet? I say facetiously that Trump and the Republicans are trying to tank as Trump would believe the “ends justify the means.”