I’d forgotten all about Tim Miller, the openly gay establishment Bushie politico whose career as a media flack took him through the GOP failure wringer from John McCain to John Huntsman, to Mitt Romney, to Jeb Bush, to nonstop screeching about Donald Trump. He’s now a writer for The Bulwark, which is a rump website (it exists on Substack now rather than on its own) professing to be conservative but chiefly exists to screech loudly the basic tenets of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

In any event, Miller made his way to Lafayette over the weekend to cover the Republican Party of Louisiana’s annual Victory 23 convention. He apparently didn’t enjoy himself because too many of the attendees had Trump gear on.

On Friday Republican activists decked out in Let’s Geaux Brandon attire filed into a sleepy conference center connected to the CAJUNDOME as two projector screens aired Right Side Broadcasting News’ archival footage of a Donald Trump rally from back in the good ol’ days. Back when their cup ranneth over with the tears of triggered libs and all was right in their world. Back before their man was indicted, weighed, photographed, arraigned and forced to surrender to the custody of Fulton County Courthouse on orders of District Attorney Fani Wills.

This was the annual gathering of the Louisiana GOP, titled “Victory 23: It’s Bigger Than All Of Us” though the vibes were less than victorious. It was just one day after the mugshot seen ‘round the world, but there were no signs that the legal troubles of their standard bearer weighed on their consciences. The congregants who made the trek to Lafayette for the sparsely attended confab had a lot of complaints—but none of them were directed at the man setting their beloved party on fire.

They were unhappy about the direction of the state, their sitting Democratic governor, and their traitorous Republican senator. But most of all they were enraged at how the Department of Justice is treating their rightful president, Donald J. Trump.

This stated bitterness was offset by another overriding theme of the day: their hope, their faith, and their desire to fight for the “soul of the nation.” to borrow a phrase. Speakers prayed for Louisiana. They prayed for humility. They prayed for rain.

But mostly they prayed for resurrection.

Miller dumped on the party convention’s attendance, and yes – it could be said that the Victory 23 crowd was a little smaller than last year’s assemblage. That isn’t a surprise – this is a statewide cycle year in Louisiana and there are scores of races going on all over the state. In such circumstances it’s difficult to fill a convention center with attendees. Your party activists often skip a party convention because they’re busy doing party-activist things.

Even so, if you’ve been to state party conventions you know that “sparsely attended” can be a euphemism. State parties usually struggle to fill rooms.

Tim Miller assumedly has been to several state party conventions. Working the campaigns he’s worked, he also assumedly knows what sparse crowds look like.

What he doesn’t seem to acknowledge is that the crowd at Victory 23 was as pro-Trump as it was because of an explicit rejection of people like Tim Miller.

Then there was the Louie Gohmert interaction…

In the hallway next to the concession stand I bumped into the day’s keynote speaker, former Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, a man who once acknowledged that people perceived him to be the “dumbest member of Congress.”

I asked Gohmert if he was still on the Trump Train for 2024. He was. I tried to make a practical case for why sticking with Trump might not make sense. (Aren’t you worried about all the time in court during the campaign, I asked. Might the party benefit from someone without the baggage? Hasn’t he failed a lot already? Etc.)

Gohmert was unbowed. He said that the Department of Justice is so corrupt that they would target anyone Republicans put up.

When I pointed out that Mike Pence, Bill Barr, and other top Trump officials had not been indicted or investigated, Gohmert said that was because they are doing the Biden administration’s bidding. Struggling to unbind myself from that logic puzzle, I wished him well and proceeded to get my $4.25 bottle of Aquafina. (#Bidenflation!)

You can imagine my surprise a few hours later when Gohmert talked about our exchange as part of his speech.

Gohmert’s speech was wild.

He began by relaying a message from former President Trump, who he claimed to have just spoken to recently. He took out notes from this conversation as if to refresh his memory:  “Mr. Trump loves being in Louisiana,” he said. And “This is one of his favorite places in the world to come.” (Not as high of praise as it seems given that Trump doesn’t seem to ever leave his two golf clubs).

Gohmert then recalled how Trump had vented about Senator Bill Cassidy: “I was begged for an endorsement by Bill Cassidy and I gave him the endorsement,” he said. “Next thing I know he wants me to be impeached and he is telling me to drop out of the race. Seems like he outta be the one dropping out of the race.”

This was by far the most raucous applause line of the entire day

Then Gohmert riffed on our encounter.

“I was asked by a very polite person just out here moments ago, did I think Trump outta drop out?” The crowd booed.

It took me a second to recognize this conversation as mine since usually Republican politicians don’t find me so polite! But then Gohmert went on to repeat much of what he told me:

I was asked by a very polite person out here moments ago, ya know, didn’t I think Trump should drop out . . . Let me say, be for whomever you wish but let me make sure you understand what’s really happening. . . .It will not matter who the Republican nominee for president is, the DOJ is gonna make sure that they’ve got baggage. Even if they make it up. They are going to create court requirements for whomever our nominee is. So if your one prerequisite is we need a Republican nominee without any baggage, who doesn’t have to go to court that’s not gonna happen and you need to wake up and be aware of it. They’re gonna come after whoever the nominee is.

Got that, Republicans? You are chained to your Orange God King, the only president in history to have been indicted, because our Department of Justice is so corrupt that they would indict any Republican! They just haven’t gotten to any other Republican running. (Yet!)

Trump has been to Louisiana twice in the last three months. Guess Miller wasn’t aware of that.

This effeminate bitching at Gohmert fails to recognize that what he said is patently obviously true, and Miller’s blindness to the fact that this DOJ and its zany state-prosecutor allies aren’t just going after Trump and his lawyers, or the January 6 protesters, but pro-life sidewalk counselors, conservative bloggers and meme-makers, and even parents agitating against woke educational aggressions at local school boards.

And while it’s unlikely that The Bulwark would be very satisfied with Ron DeSantis as the GOP nominee in the event Trump isn’t, it should be understood that there are already rumblings of lawfare being prepared for DeSantis over the decision to fly illegal immigrants to places like Martha’s Vineyard.

Gohmert, who was a judge before he was a congressman and is a lawyer, knows these things a whole lot better than Miller does.

What really happened at Victory 23? It was a gathering mostly of Trump-supporting GOP activists whose attention was focused far more on this fall’s statewide election cycle, including legislative races and the statewide offices being contested by various incumbents and challengers, than national politics. Sure, there was talk about national issues. You get that at a political convention. But contra Tim Miller and the lefties at the Louisiana Illuminator, most speakers discussed state issues and elections.

If there was undying fealty to be seen, it wasn’t so much to Trump as it was to Jeff Landry, the party’s endorsed candidate for governor. Virtually everyone there had a Landry sticker somewhere, and it was conspicuous that none of the other GOP candidates bothered to even send surrogates to press the flesh and get the word out.

But Tim Miller doesn’t care, because what The Bulwark does is anti-Trump stuff – not actual news and information. So he writes about 2024 when it’s 2023, and in Louisiana we have a statewide election cycle in full swing this year and not next year.

Oh, and according to Wikipedia Tim Miller and his husband moved to New Orleans earlier this year. So while he ought to care about state things in a state where he lives in a state election year, that isn’t what we get. We get attacks on Trump, and by extension the vast majority of the political party Miller launched his career in, and nothing whatsoever useful.

And the Bulwark crowd wonders why the rest of the world rolls our eyes at them and flashes a middle finger in their direction. They represent a Republican Party even Republican voters can’t stand, and they wonder why Trump maintains his popularity.

It isn’t about Trump, boys. It’s about you. You’re the reason they’re sticking with Trump, and you aren’t smart enough or honest enough to get that.