Years ago, I wrote that the institution that would suffer the most at Donald Trump’s hands was the Republican Party.

I argued that Trump was going to weaken the GOP’s intellectual and philosophic foundations and shrink the party by pitting Republican against Republican.

He’s done that.

Maybe even worse.

The happy dances Trump and his allies are doing over the primary defeat of U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, demonstrate as much. The former president and his friends are thrilled, just thrilled, that they have managed to alienate an entire segment of their own party, maybe permanently.

Trump and crew dismiss Cheney as a “RINO”—meaning, Republican in name only.

That’s a curious charge, given that Trump himself only formally became a Republican a little more than a decade ago and has a long history of giving to Democratic candidates and causes.

Nor has his ideological course resembled the straight course of an arrow in flight. At different times, he’s been pro-choice and pro-life, pro-same-sex-marriage and against it, in favor of gun control and then opposed to it.

Cheney, on the other hand, has been a devout Republican since she was in utero. She never met a tax cut she didn’t like or a government regulation she did not view with skepticism or loathing. She loves guns and hates abortion.

Always has.

Always will.

She also was willing to toe the line on almost all things.

During the four years Trump was president, Cheney voted with him 93% of the time.

So, what turned her into what the Trump crowd loves to call her, “the Democrats’ favorite Republican?”

She broke with the former president over a couple of big things.

She didn’t think the president of the United States should try to extort the leader of another nation—in this case, Ukraine’s president—into interfering in an American election.

Nor did she believe the president of the United States, who takes an oath to preserve and protect this nation and its institutions, should encourage his followers to violently overturn a legitimate presidential election.

Liz Cheney had the audacity to both say and vote that both those things were wrong—and that Donald Trump was wrong to have done them.

For that, the former president felt compelled to punish her.

He endorsed a primary opponent for Cheney and rarely has passed up an opportunity to denigrate and vilify her.

In the short term, Trump has been successful. His chosen candidate thumped Cheney, 66% to 29%.

It’s likely to be a costly victory for Trump and the GOP.

Liz Cheney comes from a family with a long and distinguished Republican pedigree. Her father is a former U.S. vice president, Cabinet officer and member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Her mother has been a mainstay of the modern conservative intellectual movement.

The Cheney clan has many friends and allies, including the extended family that produced two former Republican U.S. presidents.

One wonders how the Bushes and the Cheneys feel about being read out of the Republican Party they once carried on their backs.

Donald Trump sees his pyrrhic victory over Liz Cheney as a great triumph, proof of his potency as a leader.

Actually, it demonstrates the opposite.

Politics, the saying goes, is about addition, not subtraction. The side that encourages the most people to wander into its tent wins.

Liz Cheney voted with Donald Trump almost 95% of the time.

A skilled politician would value that sort of loyalty and would work to cultivate the relationship.

Not Donald Trump.

He’s about subtraction, not addition. If people aren’t with him all the way—aren’t willing to follow every one of his zigzags and transgressions—then he wants to throw them out of the tent altogether.

A skilled leader would have turned Liz Cheney, her family and all their friends into devoted followers. Instead, Trump has created a host of implacable enemies.

Cheney reportedly is considering a 2024 presidential run. She wants to give disaffected Republicans a way to voice their dissatisfaction.

If she does run and she captures even 3% of the vote, the chances that the GOP—which has won the popular vote in a presidential election only once in the past 30 years—will reclaim the Oval Office range from none to nonexistent.

But that’s Donald Trump for you.

With friends like him, Republicans sure don’t need enemies.

John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The opinions expressed by the author do not reflect the views of Franklin College. Send comments to [email protected].