Who do members of Congress serve?
They ostensibly represent the residents of their states and districts otherwise known as their constituents, but that is evidently not the case for congressional Republicans. You might say they don't even have constituents; they have "benefactors."
You might say that because that's what they say.
The president of the GOP's Senate Leadership Fund addressed a letter to the party's wealthy "benefactors" last week to thank them for making certain races competitive.
“For most of 2018, we have raised concerns about the severe fundraising gap between Democrat and Republican candidates,” Steven Law, president of Senate Leadership Fund, wrote in a memo to donors.
The super PAC, which is aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, poured a late surge of money into key Senate races, “throwing a lifeline to our embattled and heavily outspent Republican candidates” and helping “our candidates eke out a small lead or pull within the margin of error in each of these campaigns during this period," Law wrote in the memo, which was obtained by POLITICO.
“If it weren’t for the generosity of our benefactors, few of these Senate races would still be competitive heading into the home stretch,” Law wrote.
Who are the GOP's "benefactors?"
They're not small donors. They're not the rubes who shout obscenities toward CNN at Trump's unhinged klan rallies. They're not even necessarily people who live in their states.
The "benefactors" are the people who pocketed the GOP's $1.5 trillion tax cut. They're the wealthy political class who've been given new ways to dodge taxes. They're executives who've reaped the benefits of stock buybacks and dividend payments.
Of course, if you've been paying attention, this isn't new information. You may recall that Republicans said they must pass tax cuts to please their donors before they voted to do exactly that. Their donors responded by funneling millions into their campaign coffers to prevent an electoral wipeout.
The tax cuts were more or less a trillion dollar bribe.