Bill Bolling lost his Republican Party to Donald Trump, and it’s his own fault

Bill Bolling, the former two-term lieutenant governor, used to come across to me as a middle-of-the-road Republican, but then, he’s been up front about voting three times for Donald Trump, so, he has that going for him.

I give you that background to preface his most recent critique of Trumpism, which is that it has rendered the Grand Old Party – the GOP that dates way back to Lincoln, but more recently, took on the form of Reagan – “stone cold dead.”

“The GOP is no longer the party of Ronald Reagan. Not even close. The GOP has been totally redefined in the image of Donald Trump. Some will see the Trumpification of the GOP as a good thing. Others will see it as a bad thing, but make no mistake, it is a thing,” Bolling wrote in a lengthy Facebook essay posted on Thursday.

Bolling, writing that “no one else’s opinion matters, just Trump’s,” doesn’t seem to get that he’s a big part of the problem here – that Trump doesn’t take over the Republican Party on the strength of the MAGA voting bloc alone.

Trump’s approval rating, currently in the upper 20s to low 30s nationally, depending on the polling outfit, is stripped down to the hardcores.

Quick math: you don’t win elections in the upper 20s to low 30s without adding in people like Bill Bolling who, three times, held their noses and voted for a guy that they want the rest of us to believe they don’t really like.

That’s where Trump is held accountable – if he tells you he’s going to be a dictator on Day 1, and you still vote for him, he’s going to be a dictator on Day 1, and thereafter, and if you’re Bill Bolling, and you don’t like that, too bad, you’ve lost your party.

Rendering moot his observation that Trump “controls the Republican Party much like Boss Tweed controlled Democratic politics in New York in the late 19th and early 20th century,” and “the way Harry Byrd and the Byrd Organization controlled Virginia Democratic politics in the mid 20th century.”

Bill, personal note: he does that because people like you, who had three times to stand up to him, failed to do so, because you were blinded by the prospect of him getting your party back into political power.

Joke’s on you – he has the political power, and you no longer have a party.

Seems that Bolling wrote this because he’s stepping into the perimeter of wisdom on how Trump being a lame-duck isn’t good for the party’s future – near-term and beyond.

“The irony is that the GOP faithful continue to hitch their wagon to Trump, even though his approval ratings continue to fall, and he is rapidly losing support among key voter blocks that helped him secure re-election in 2024. How will this impact the 2026 midterm elections? Time will tell,” he wrote.

Spoiler alert: it’s not going to go well for what remains of the GOP.