Donald Trump is in the White House, and the MAGA faithful are in full celebration mode. “We are back!” The Dems are on the run. It is the dawn of a new day.
Not so fast. Donald Trump and his followers are very much on the same page. They want a full-scale political revolution and a return to the republic’s founding principles. They want to throw the bums out and put the people back in control.
Between Trump and the grassroots, though, a very powerful Republican establishment apparatus remains in place. These are the guys who wear their MAGA hats and talk about “draining the swamp” as long as President Trump is in town, but as soon as he leaves, they go right back to business as usual. They don’t envision J.D. Vance as Trump’s successor. They see somebody like Nikki Haley in the White House and a return to “normalcy.”
You can see this phenomenon on full display in Pennsylvania, where the state GOP just installed Greg Rothman as the chair. Rothman, as we have documented, has a great deal of very questionable ethical baggage. None of that mattered. He was the guy the party elders knew would maintain the status quo and fight back against the “rabble” in the Patriot movement. He was the man to put Pennsylvania on track to a post-MAGA future.
The GOP wasn’t taking any chances. They intended to ensure Rothman’s installation and rigged the game from the opening bell.
The outgoing GOP chairman, Lawrence Tabas, endorsed Rothman. Newly elected U.S. Senator McCormick endorsed Rothman. Demands for a secret ballot to allow delegates to the state convention to vote without fear of retribution were denied. Instead, the vote was conducted by roll call. Each delegate to the state convention’s vote was recorded by name in front of the entire assembly. If you did not vote as desired, your decision to step out of line would be remembered. There would be consequences.
Then, the establishment moved on to outright intimidation. There was outrage statewide.
Guy Berkebile, Chairman of the Somerset County Republican Committee, told Harrisburg100 that he emailed the PAGOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas to protest the intimidation tactics of Cambria County Chairwoman Jackie Kulback who was threatening delegates to the state convention if they did not vote as directed.
Charlotte Shaffer, Adams County Republican Chairwoman, also wrote an email to Tabas, which she then posted on social media. “Given the toxic environment and blatant intimidation tactics at play I am formally demanding that all elections conducted at the Republican Party of Pennsylvania’s State Committee Meeting on Feb. 8, 2025 be held using secret paper ballots. Election Integrity starts at home.”
Rick Rathfon, Chairman of the Clarion County Republican Committee, told Harrisburg100 that the: “backdoor deals” and intimidation tactics being employed for the PAGOP Chairman’s race needed to stop immediately. “(We) had a huge victory, electing Donald J. Trump as the 47th President of the U.S. and Dave McCormick, defeating “do-nothing” Bob Casey. We need to maintain a high standard of integrity in our state party; if these people drag our party into the ‘swamp,’ we may lose races in 2026 and beyond! (We) preached ‘election integrity’ in 2024 so we must have secret paper ballots on Feb. 8 to ensure that State Committee members can feel free to vote for their preferred candidate and not one they are forced to vote for out of fear of reprisal!”
As noted above, none of this mattered. All protests were denied.
Greg Rothman is now the PA GOP chair, and if you think this guy has Trump’s back, think again.
In addition to the long list of ethical issues surrounding Rothman, he has a history of donations to Democratic candidates (including two $1,000 donations to Gov. Ed Rendell that amazingly correlated in time to Rendell’s pardon of Rothman for his forgery conviction.) Rothman endorsed Ron DeSantis in 2023. He never made any contributions to Trump’s campaign. He has been tied to a “Pay-for-Play deal with Harrisburg’s Mayor Linda Thompson. Rothman was forced to resign as Chairman of the Cumberland County Republican Party because of a series of questions about ethical lapses – including renting a property he owned to the County Party.
Then of course, there is the question of Rothman’s reported 12 trips to Cuba. He says he went to play baseball with an adult baseball team. There is no record of Rothman ever playing baseball in High School or College. In one year, he appears on the roster of a “fantasy League” baseball team that took wannabe players to Cuba to play baseball for a fee ($3,500 – $4,500, so it wasn’t cheap).
The “tours” advertised the opportunity to meet with Cubans and Cuban officials. Rothman was one of the Founders of PA Engage Cuba, a group that advocates for the dropping of restrictions and tariffs on Cuba and promotes Obama/Biden Cuba policies. Looking at all this, one cannot help but think of Tim Walz and his contacts with Communist China.
Rothman’s opponent in the race for state chair was businessman Bill Bachenberg. Bachenberg has solid grassroots credentials and has raised large amounts of money for Trump. He has no ambitions for higher office and most certainly cannot be bought. There was never any chance the “swamp” was going to let him win.
In America, it is the dawn of a new day. Trump is transforming Washington, D.C., and fighting for the people. In Pennsylvania, it is business as usual, and Nikki Haley (or some other non-MAGA swamp creature) is warming up in the wings.