House Republicans, by siding with Stefanik, a Trump ally, against an internal critic, Cheney, are effectively abetting his revenge campaign. It's a move not without logic, strictly from a short-term political perspective, given which GOP candidates have been successful most recently. And it also has a longer-range precedent in the successful campaign of Trump hero Andrew Jackson in 1828. It's the only time in U.S. history that a major-party candidate has won a campaign based purely on comeuppance, and it was arguably the ugliest contest America has ever seen. Over the past five years, down-ballot Republicans have performed best when allying themselves with Trump. House Republicans lost their majority for the first time in eight years during the 2018 midterm cycle. Many of the GOP lawmakers who went down tried, futilely, to distance themselves from Trump. But with Trump leading the ballot last year, even in what turned out to be a losing re-election bid, House Republicans gained 12 seats, putting them within striking distance of winning a majority next year. It's no surprise, really, that Republicans want to hug the former president politically as closely as possible. "I would just say to my Republican colleagues: 'Can we move forward without President Trump?' The answer is no," Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a recent interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.