Only a couple of resounding things came from the 2024 Republican presidential debate cycle: that none of its participants would be this year’s Republican presidential nominee, and that the party loathes TikTok. On this there was unanimity—Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, and Chris Christie, all were eager to prove that they wanted to ban TikTok with the very most gusto.

In a Republican Party very light on policy recommendations, and lighter still on policies candidates are willing to embrace openly, this policy looked like near orthodoxy, even as recently as early March, when all but 22 House Republicans voted to force the sale of the company or ban it outright. “Digital fentanyl,” you may remember sundry Republicans calling the social media app, at any opportunity. Digital fentanyl! Digital fentanyl! Digital fentanyl!

But then, right around that vote, something happened: Donald Trump had a change of heart, one that coincided with a fundraiser. In early March, Trump spoke at a donor retreat for the powerful, conservative, and lavishly funded outside spending group Club for Growth, an organization that is one of TikTok’s richest and most vocal defenders in Washington.

Not long after, Trump went from TikTok ban enthusiast—really, the one whose support allowed all these other Republicans to claim that they supported it—to TikTok ban opponent.

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In the context of everything else he may do with a second term, one minor policy flip-flop may seem like small potatoes, but the development represented a tectonic movement in Republican politics. For years, the Club for Growth warred with Trump. In 2022 the group was at bitter odds over Senate races; in 2023 it even opposed his presidential bid. The Club for Growth has also long clashed with Mitch McConnell, and that stance has placed the organization squarely on the outside of GOP politicking. But McConnell is out—retiring as his chamber’s party leader, leaving a power vacuum in the Senate—and Trump has been brought in. He told the group’s donors that he and its president, David McIntosh, are “back in love.” McIntosh had dinner at Mar-a-Lago and rode along with Trump to a campaign event to prove it.

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But why is Trump welcoming the Club for Growth back into his arms? Well, he badly needs money. His small-dollar fundraising is in abysmal shape, and his legal fees are consuming a huge percentage of his presidential campaign resources. The Republican National Committee, after being purged and restaffed with Trump loyalists, is in a dreadful cash crunch.

The Club for Growth has money, tons of it. The group had outside spending of more than $80 million during the 2022 cycle and contributed another $20 million to favored candidates. Among its top donors are billionaires Richard Uihlein and Jeffrey Yass; Yass, who holds a multibillion-dollar stake in TikTok, is already the top individual political donor of the 2024 cycle.

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Now the Club for Growth is newly at the center of Republican politics after years of scrapping on the outside—and it’s going on the offensive. As Politico reported, the group has cranked up the intimidation against Republican members of Congress who would vote for the TikTok ban: “The conservative political powerhouse Club for Growth had a threat for members: Vote for the bill, and we could dock your score.”

In the days immediately after Trump’s flip-flop, Republicans claimed that their position in favor of a ban was immovable. In the House, Texas Freedom Caucuser Chip Roy said as much, as did prominent Florida Trump backer Mario Díaz-Balart.

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We’ll see. Don’t forget that in 2020, the RNC’s entire political platform was “whatever Trump wants.” Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican lodestar on this issue—he wrote a now-famous essay calling for this legislation and was an early adopter of the “digital fentanyl” line—has since announced that he will be leaving Congress posthaste (and taking a job at Palantir).

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If Republicans revere Trump (enough to vote to overturn the results of an election he lost), they revere megadonors only slightly less, meaning that their willingness to stare down Yass and Uihlein is not immense. And they respect lobbyists, of which TikTok has many, a close third.

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Because, wouldn’t you know it, TikTok has been loading up on them as well. The company has nearly four dozen lobbyists currently on the dole, a giant roster. Among them are numerous high-ranking former Republicans, including Trent Lott, who was Senate majority leader not so many years before McConnell took over the role. The Club for Growth is front-loading this campaign with some muscle of its own, drafting Kellyanne Conway as its TikTok lobbyist.

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Usually, when Republicans do bombastic culture war, it happens far away from D.C.—dogpiling on trans high school athletes or antifa. But here is the rare culture war battle they’ve chosen that has delivered itself right into their front yard.

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Right now the fate of the TikTok ban rests in the Senate, where it doesn’t seem entirely likely to move. Senate Democrats haven’t looked terribly eager to vote on the bill, but they’re notably getting little public heat from those very same House Republicans who voted to pass it, or from their Senate colleagues across the aisle.

So, after all that screeching, it’s likely that many Republicans are going to slink away from their war on digital fentanyl. Some will go quietly, others hilariously. Ramaswamy, who sought to emulate Trump in all ways, is one great example of the latter: After he banked a $4.9 million donation from Yass, TikTok became a much quieter part of his campaign oratory, and he came out in opposition to the ban.

Maybe not all GOPers will have so dramatic an epiphany. But it’s not likely that you’ll be hearing all that much about TikTok from them from here on out. It’s gone from winning political villain to political loser for Republicans in the blink of one man’s sudden cash crunch.

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