Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

A share of Iowa’s Republican electorate appears ready to abandon Senator Joni Ernst in favor of a more Trumpian replacement in the 2026 Iowa Republican primary election. It’s yet another sign of what today’s Republican Party has become: Donald Trump’s captive. Independent judgment within the GOP is now almost extinct.

Ernst’s current situation arose because she didn’t promptly announce her support for Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense. Hegseth’s past provides plenty of reasons why Republican Senators should take a hard look at his nomination. For starters, he’s accused of sexual abuse (he paid a financial settlement to an accuser), a strong penchant for alcohol, and poor leadership of veterans’ advocacy organizations.

But wait, there’s more. Hegseth is on record for taking a number of questionable political positions. He called for Trump to pardon veterans convicted of war crimes. He opposed women in combat roles. A Hegseth quote opposes “globalism, socialism, secularism, environmentalism, Islamism, genderism, and leftism.” He opposes the longtime U.S. position of a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine and advocates Israeli control of the West Bank. He has called for Trump to bomb Iran.

That kind of dossier should be enough to give any Republican pause. Yet because he’s Trump’s nominee, nearly all the party faithful in the Senate are falling into line to support him.

Ernst’s political “crime” isn’t one of commission. She hasn’t said she will vote against confirming Hegseth. It’s rather one of omission: she hasn’t said she will vote for him. Ernst has stated she supports Hegseth’s progress in the nomination process so far, and both she and Hegseth say their private conversations have been productive and instructive. But that attitude doesn’t pass muster with a significant slice of the party faithful, who instead demand that Republicans office-holders approve whatever Trump wants.

It’s not a far stretch to liken Ernst and other hesitant Republicans—on any topic—to political prisoners of war. Some major Republican funders are threatening to “primary” Ernst in 2026, and one Republican has already announced he’s going to run against her. There may be more.

Through Trump’s first term in office, Ernst supported his positions more than 88 percent of the time, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis from January 2021. But that’s not enough loyalty for true Trumpians. For them it’s all or nothing.

At this point, most knowledgeable observers see Ernst conquering any primary challenger in 2026. But it’s not a sure thing: political surprises shake up elections often enough to give pause to Ernst and her supporters.

It isn’t just Hegseth. Ernst’s record on some issues could come back to haunt her vis-a-vis Trump.

For instance, when then-President Barack Obama made some recess appointments in 2014, Ernst called him a dictator who should be removed from office or face impeachment. Now Trump is reportedly considering making the same kind of recess appointments.

How will Ernst square that circle? She will either have to concede she’s changed her mind, or else face the challenge of public inconsistency: the opprobrium of flip-flop. Remember “I was against it before I was for it?”

Republicans don’t equate Trump with God, although some of them think God has chosen him to lead the nation, moral failings notwithstanding. Many see in him some of the characteristics of the divine: omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent (all-present, all-knowing, and all-powerful). For them, opposition to Trump by a Republican amounts to heresy. The true Trump supporters demand orthodoxy.

King Louis XIV of France, the story goes, in 1655 told the French Parliament, “L’etat, c’est moi.” Translation: “I am myself the state.” In other words, whatever Louis did was legitimate. Opposition to that royal theory was what the American Revolution was all about 120 years later. The Constitution was crafted to immunize the United States against one-person rule.

Over the more than two centuries since, and certainly since the Civil War, presidents of both parties have steadily amassed more power at the expense of Congress, generally with the assistance of the Judiciary. The American people have acquiesced in that transfer of power, as the nation and the world have grown increasingly complex and challenging. It’s easier to leave it up to the head of state than to insist on the balance of power among the three branches of government.

On some occasions, Ernst has showed the kind of courage the Founders intended. She questioned the wisdom of Trump’s tariffs during his first term, differed with him on some foreign policy issues, and demanded answers from Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency appointees about their commitment to the ethanol-friendly Renewable Fuel Standard.

Now the questions surrounding Trump’s key cabinet nominees challenge her to decide what’s more important to her: job security, or duty to the Constitution and the nation she defended in military combat. Either way, she’ll need to answer to the people of Iowa.

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Top image is a screenshot from a video posted on Senator Joni Ernst’s official YouTube channel on December 17, 2024.