Donald Trump loves the words sleazebag and scumball, so much so that he’s surrounded himself with the very definition of those two offensive terms. And it’s hard to be more offensive than Texas GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton, unless you’re Donald Trump, of course.Last night, Paxton, impeached, indicted, accused of bribery, and credibly alleged to have used the Texas Attorney General’s office to benefit a donor who was simultaneously employing the woman he was having an affair with, won the Republican Senate primary in Texas by a landslide.He is now the face of the Republican Party’s 2026 midterm campaign. And if you want to understand just how far the GOP has fallen, just how morally and ethically hollowed out it has become, look at Ken Paxton.Well, again, look at Trump first, because the GOP has now come full circle, putting up a guy who is as big a scumbag and sleazeball as Trump.This is a man whose career reads like a mafioso rap sheet.The scandal-plagued career of Paxton reads like someone dared crime writer John Grisham to pen fiction about every possible form of corruption into a single Southern Gothic crime lord. Bribery. Abuse of office. An extramarital affair. A wealthy donor allegedly employing his mistress as a favor.That same donor allegedly bankrolled renovations on Paxton’s home while Paxton’s office did him favors in return. His own conservative staffers, Republicans, people who worked for him, were so alarmed they went to the FBI. Not Democrats. Not liberal activists. His own people. Four of them later sued him, and Paxton ended up apologizing and cutting a $3.3 million check.Did I mention he did that with taxpayer money to make it go away? Paxton’s story reads less like a Grisham novel than a Stephen King horror tome.And still, somehow, there was more. The Republican-controlled Texas House, again, his own party, his own state, had seen enough. They drew up 20 articles of impeachment and made him only the third officeholder in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to be impeached. Twenty articles.The list of offenses was so long it needed its own table of contents. If we’re going to compare, I suppose Paxton’s list was short, given that Trump’s would entail volumes, like an encyclopedia set, if anyone knows what that is anymore.Just like if anyone in the GOP knows what moral and ethical values are.Paxton was ultimately acquitted by the Texas Senate, though that had absolutely nothing to do with his innocence and more to do with his chummy colleagues saving him.And after all of it, Donald Trump looked at this man and called him a “true MAGA Warrior” worthy of the United States Senate.This is what the bottom of the barrel looks like, and in light of slush funds, ballrooms, gas prices, the Iran war, Trump has now taken the GOP, and his “true MAGA Warriors,” about as far down as you can go.The GOP has come full circle. The party that once screamed moral outrage about Bill Clinton over a lie about an affair has now enthusiastically nominated a man whose corruption scandals make Clinton’s look like … how do I put this … child’s play, and no pun intended whatsoever.The party that used to run on “character counts” has now made Paxton the poster child of the new GOP candidate. The Republican Party in 2026 has decided that corruption, scandal, and ethical rot aren’t disqualifying. No, they’re practically credentials to be included in campaign ads, because Paxton’s scandals are the only thing he’s ever accomplished in public office.Paxton isn’t an aberration. He is a reflection. He mirrors Donald Trump almost perfectly: the indictments brushed aside as political persecution, the abuse of office recast as fighting the establishment, the personal moral failures ignored by a base that has decided winning is the only virtue that matters.The sanctimonious heathens that are Southern Christian conservatives view Paxton as a steadfast champion of religious liberty, the pro-life movement, and traditional family values, which means anti-LGBTQ+. Like Trump, Christians give Paxton a pass.If you take this theory at face value, the only thing Paxton hasn’t done is kill anyone — well, women in Texas did die trying to get life-saving abortions, but then again, that’s okay for the religious right, so he gets another pass. It never ends.Emulating Trump, Paxton watched all of this, took careful notes, and ran as a mini-me Trump in Texas and won. Why wouldn’t he? The party and its base taught him that none of it matters.And — said with glee — Paxton’s ascension is devastating for Republicans in the general election.
