FILE – In this Nov. 15, 2011, file photo former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Walsh, a former Illinois congressman, says he’ll challenge President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020. The tea party favorite argues that Trump is unfit for the White House. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

A little earlier this morning, former Congressman and radio mediocrity Joe Walsh ended his red hot campaign to take the GOP nomination away from President Trump.

Former US Rep. Joe Walsh is ending his uphill challenge against Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination, after suffering a crushing loss in the Iowa GOP caucuses in which he received only 1% of the vote. “I am ending my candidacy for president of the United States,” Walsh told CNN’s John Berman on “New Day.” “I got into this because I thought it was really important that there was a Republican — a Republican — out there every day calling out this president for how unfit he is.” Walsh, a conservative, said he will do whatever he can to stop Trump, including help any of the Democratic candidates get elected. Trump “literally is the greatest threat to this country right now. Any Democrat would be better than Trump in the White House,” he said. He accused the Republican Party of being a “cult” and said Trump can’t be beat in the GOP primary “so there’s no reason for me, or any candidate, really to be in there.”

As best I can tell his overriding motive was that running as a NeverTrump Republican was potentially a very good grift. His sole campaign theme is encapsulated in this tweet:

Joe Walsh is a true #NeverTrump Republican. His message to others members of the GOP is simple: "Your only option is a Democrat. It's not Trump. It's not the cult." Well said. November is all that stands between the country we have and the country we're not going to have. pic.twitter.com/7iclvi04qj — Russell Drew (@RussOnPolitics) February 7, 2020

In all seriousness, NeverTrump, since November 9, 2016, has been motivated by no larger principle than a toddler’s tantrums and self-aggrandizement. Their professed love for the GOP and for the country doesn’t extend to showing even a modicum of respect for countrymen who made the prudential judgment that any, any, Republican was better than Hillary Clinton and the current field of Democrats nor does it extend to protecting the nation from those who would fundamentally alter the nature of this nation and the liberties it guarantees to those who live here:

JUST NOW: " I would rather have a socialist in the White House than a dictator." As he drops out of GOP primary Former Tea Party Republican @WalshFreedom says he will back any Democrat.@NewDaypic.twitter.com/sEd1Oc4nez — John Berman (@JohnBerman) February 7, 2020

If you are willing to say that a socialist is a better choice than the man who has led the US to unprecedented prosperity and carried out a direct assault on the regulatory state, then you aren’t a conservative, and you aren’t a Republican, and I even question if you are an American.

So while Joe Walsh departs the national stage to go back to his life as a deadbeat dad, we can be comforted in the knowledge that even though the Walsh candidacy is gone, the grift lives on. Forever.

I’m suspending my campaign, but our fight against the Cult of Trump is just getting started. I’m committed to doing everything I can to defeat Trump and his enablers this November. I can’t do it alone. Join me at https://t.co/d40HA9h2Kz. — Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) February 7, 2020