What to Expect When You're Expecting Fascism
Welcome! You’ve made it to the part of the year where the Utah Republican Party reminds us that they’re less of a political party and more of a panic room. Last Saturday was the Utah GOP’s state convention. A once-a-year gathering where they should be setting the strategy for you know, running the state, and coming together. But this weekend’s GOP convention wasn’t a strategy session for winning hearts and minds, it was a loyalty test, a bunker drill, and a group therapy session for people terrified of voters.
But here’s the thing: their chaos is our opportunity.
Today, we’re going to unpack what really went down at the convention, what it tells us about the current state of the GOP, and most importantly, what we’re going to do about it.
Because while they’re busy tightening the hatch, we’re building exits. While they cling to one man, we’re betting on three million Utahns. And while they spin out, we’re organizing in every corner of the state, they’re too scared to knock.
So yes, the Utah GOP’s convention was unhinged. But it also told us exactly what they’re afraid of and exactly where we dig.
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When a Party Stops Being a Party and Turns Into a Panic Room
Political Science 101: A political party is a group that wins power by convincing voters it has good ideas. (Fine, that’s my loose definition, but just roll with it.) By that standard, the Utah GOP isn’t really a party anymore. It’s a panic room with a merch table.
This weekend’s convention wasn’t about choosing a chair. It was a security drill sorting insiders from outsiders, tightening the door, scanning for defectors, and kissing the one voter who still matters: Donald J. Trump.
Rob Axson, the Trump-endorsed incumbent chair, narrowly beat Phil Lyman by just 125 votes. But this wasn’t a contest between different visions for the future. It was a contest between which flavor of Trump-worship delegates preferred.
And that tells you everything.
The Utah GOP’s behavior makes perfect sense once you accept one simple fact: They're not trying to appeal to voters anymore. They're performing for each other. They’ve become their own echo chamber, shrinking their base while convincing themselves everyone else is the enemy, including, apparently, democracy itself.
This convention was proof that the Utah GOP isn't interested in growing, evolving, or even winning fairly anymore. They're preparing for something much darker: clinging to power by any means necessary.
When Trump Backstabs His Most Loyal Mini-Me
If you’d asked us two weeks ago who would win the chair race, our money would have probably been on Phil Lyman. Republican delegates are the same crew that handed Lyman a 2-to-1 victory over Spencer Cox at last year’s gubernatorial convention. They love the guy. Why wouldn’t they? He’s a walking tribute band to Donald Trump:
Same rap sheet: Federal charges for an ATV stunt on protected land, then a presidential pardon.
Same refusal to lose: Got thumped in a primary, ran a write-in, then sued everybody to overturn the result.
Same worldview: If too many people vote, something must be rigged.
So delegates showed up expecting a coronation. Then, plot twist, Trump himself knifed his own look-alike and blessed the incumbent, Rob Axson. No explanation, just a Truth Social post: “ROBERT AXSON IS FANTASTIC!”
It just redirected it slightly. It wasn't Trumpism versus moderation; it was Trumpism versus louder Trumpism. Axson might be smoother, but both men were running on platforms of purity, paranoia, and punishment.
Why would Trump torpedo his perfect Utah avatar?
Follow the money. Axson can dial donors; Lyman sets them on fire. Axson tripled party fundraising; Lyman scares chambers of commerce. MAGA isn’t cheap, and Trump, ever the businessman, picked the guy who can keep the checks coming.
But…
47.5 percent of the most hard-core Republicans in Utah looked at Trump’s endorsement, shrugged, and nearly crowned the guy Trump just kneecapped. Loyalty test failed, yet somehow the cult marches on.
Either way, the delegates were choosing between two routes to the same MAGA destination. Trump’s last-minute grenade just proved one thing:
Even when Trump betrays his most devoted copycat, the Utah GOP still can’t quit him. They just squabble over which lieutenant gets to hold the briefcase full of signatures they’re planning to burn.
And that, friends, is how Phil Lyman, favorite of the faithful, lost without really losing. Because in a party this wired to Trump, the house always wins, even when it flips on its own dealer.
The Governor Who Locked Himself Outside
Spencer Cox once branded himself the Republican who could “disagree better” but last weekend, he proved he can also vanish faster.
He said he’d come. His booth was set up. His name was printed on the agenda. But when delegates showed up, Utah’s governor did what he increasingly does whenever the MAGA base gathers: he hit the eject button and hoped no one noticed the Cox-shaped hole onstage.
He bailed because he knows the rules of this new game. The Utah GOP isn’t a traditional party fighting for swing voters; it’s a shrinking club enforcing purity tests on the members who remain. And Cox, who won last time only by gathering signatures outside that club, flunks every test:
Endorsed Trump after swearing he’d write someone else in.
Signed bills banning books, bathrooms, and DEI, then tweeted about “civility.”
Still gets booed on sight by the same delegates he’s spent four years appeasing.
Cox keeps thinking there’s a “moderate lane” in a bunker. There isn’t. The delegates locked the door behind themselves years ago. All that’s left is an arms race over who can sound tougher on democracy.
So the governor skipped. Again. Not out of courage or protest but out of self-preservation. Show up and he’s a RINO piñata. Stay home and he at least avoids the meme-worthy clip of 2,000 delegates drowning him in boos (again).
So what this really means is that:
The cult can humiliate its own governor and still call itself unified.
Cox no longer controls the party he nominally leads.
Every “moderate” Republican watching got the message: comply or disappear.
In other words, the Utah GOP just tightened the bunker door another notch. Good luck to anyone still knocking from the outside.
How to Shrink Your Tent in Three Easy Steps
Step 1: Hate the Voters.
Step 2: Change the Rules.
Step 3: Repeat Until Only Delegates Remain.
Another fun update from the state convention. They went after the GOP delegates’ favorite boogeyman: SB54 (again). SB54 was the 2014 compromise that lets statewide candidates skip the caucus gauntlet by gathering signatures and going straight to a primary where, brace yourself, normal Republicans get to vote.
For a party intent on outnumbering rather than persuading, SB54 is an existential threat. So both chair candidates promised to kill it:
Phil Lyman’s plan: Pretend SB54 never existed, ignore the law, and dare the courts to stop him.
Rob Axson’s plan: Lobby the legislature to repeal it, while politely assuring GOP incumbents he’ll never back challengers who support the signature path.
Different tone, same goal: lock the doors before more voters walk in.
Delegates even floated a constitutional amendment to ban any Republican who gathers signatures from calling themselves Republican. They yanked it at the last second, not because they had second thoughts, but because they want an even harsher version next time.
What did pass? A shiny new platform plank:
“We reject any method that bypasses our convention process, including the gathering of signatures.”
Translation: If you try to let regular Republicans choose their nominee, you’re out.
This isn’t about election integrity. It’s about market share. The delegate class is watching Utah’s population grow younger, less conservative, and—thanks to fair-map lawsuits—potentially more competitive. Their answer isn’t to broaden the tent; it’s to shrink the tent until only the doorkeepers fit inside.
And the punchline: every time they tighten the rules, they prove our point for us. They’re not afraid of Democrats. They’re afraid of democracy. (And also a little afraid of democrats)
New Level of Loyalty Test Unlocked: “Trump 2028”
One more gem from the convention floor: a resolution to condemn any attempt to let a president serve more than two terms, you know, the 22nd-Amendment stuff from that little document Republicans claim to love so much.
Trump had just joked to troops in Qatar, “Maybe we’ll have to think about that fourth run.”
A Salt Lake County delegate rose to a mic and said opposing that idea would be “basically a counter-signal to President Trump.”
The room agreed, waved their credentials, and killed the resolution on the spot.
And good thing that convention featured a merch booth peddling bright-red “TRUMP 2028” hats like the Constitution is a limited-edition drop they can backorder.
So, in the same weekend, the party vowed to keep regular Republicans out of primaries, and delegates also voted not to pre-emptively oppose a third Trump term.
It’s all one pattern: if the rules get in the way of the dear leader, the rules must go. Term limits, signature paths, even basic math, nothing is sacred.
Why “Fix-It-From-the-Inside” Is a Mirage
Now this is a topic for a whole nother substack. And we promise to write it. It's been on the list for a long time. We aren’t shy that this isn't our favorite strategy. And if you remember our Moderate Mafia piece, you know that we're not afraid to hold back. So stay tuned for that.
Every cycle, the same well-intentioned advice pops up in op-eds and family group chats:
“What if Democrats (or independents) just register as Republicans? Moderate the caucus! Stop the crazies from winning!”
Sounds clever. In practice, it’s political cosplay.
Reality check:
2,560 delegates, hand-picked by precinct insiders, just picked the party chair for 900,000 Utah Republicans.
They are not a representative sample. They’re the last people you’d pick to form a focus group on swing voters. Their whole identity is gatekeeping.
Switching your registration to outvote them is like bringing a squirt gun to a brushfire. The structure is the fire.
We will do a full rundown of the numbers and races where this strategy worked and didn’t in the aforementioned above note.
Had an army of non-Republicans shown up to block Phil Lyman, the prize would still be Rob Axson: a Trump-endorsed chair who wants fewer primaries, tighter purity tests, and the same anti-voter agenda, just delivered in a nicer font.
You don’t rebuild a condemned building by moving into the basement. You condemn it, walk outside, and start pouring a new foundation next door.
So let the bunker crowd keep tightening the hatch. Our job is to keep the exits open in the party that still believes in exits. That means:
Register where you actually belong. Being honest about your affiliation is itself an act of defiance against a system built on bad faith.
Flood real primaries with real candidates. Give voters choices, the delegate class can’t veto.
Show up everywhere else – school boards, city councils, ballot measures – because the GOP can’t police what it doesn’t control.
The Utah GOP isn’t moderating from within. It’s calcifying. The fix won’t come from squeezing into their shrinking ruleset; it comes from offering voters an entirely different game. One with, you know, voters.
But like we said, wayyyy more on that later.
Their Bunker Is Our Opening
Here’s the upside of watching a party barricade itself: it tells us exactly where to dig the tunnel.
The delegate class is busy shrinking the electorate, cancel-testing its own governor, and rewriting rules so fewer Utahns have a say. Good. While they’re rearranging the furniture in their panic room, the rest of us can take the house. Here’s how we're going to do it.
1. Run Everywhere They’re Afraid to Look
They’ve decided competitive primaries are a threat? Perfect. Run one in every winnable city council, school board, and state leg seat. A party that relies on 2,500 delegates can’t keep pace with 25,000 door-knockers.
2. Embrace the “Big-Tent Boring Stuff”
Voters under 40 keep telling pollsters they want affordable housing, clean air, functioning transit, and schools that don’t ban novels like they’re pride flags. Offer that. Loudly. Consistently. Watch suburban parents, in both parties, stampede toward sanity.
3. Own the Fair-Maps Moment
The Utah Supreme Court has already signaled that partisan gerrymanders are on thin ice. When new lines land (2026 if we’re lucky, 2028 if they stall, definitely by 2030), have a full slate of candidates, volunteers, and donors ready on Day 1. The party with the deeper bench will win the decade.
4. Sell Optimism, Not Apocalypse
Authoritarians sell fear because it keeps the bunker full. Beat them with hope and a concrete alternative that’s bigger than their panic: “Utah is growing, diversifying, and ready for a two-party future. Come help build it.” Fear mobilizes, but hope multiplies.
The Short Version
They’re locking doors; we’re building more entrances.
They’re purging members; we’re adding volunteers.
They’re clinging to one man; we’re betting on three million Utahns.
The Utah GOP’s convention was a warning for them, not for us: a movement that can’t face its own voters is already halfway to irrelevance. All we have to do is show up, stay organized, and keep the welcome mat out.
Let them bunker. We’ve got canvasses to launch, signatures to gather, and a future to win.
