Definitely not. It’d not been nearly as competitive, Musk and other republican donors would not have needed to donated $100M or whatever they’re up to now, and the Democrats would just do their normal thing (and lose)

But, it’s Paxton- the 2nd most corrupt politician in America - so they had to divert funds from other close races and grassroots donations for Talarico have broken records. And the Republicans are still (probably) going to lose.

No single words, and nothing that seems too interesting in German, but there’s a good Cantonese phrase that encompasses that sentiment:

殺人放火金腰帶，修橋補路無屍骸

shā rén fàng huǒ jīn yāo dài, xiū qiáo bǔ lù wú shī hái

Roughly, “murder and arson earn a gold belt; doing good deeds (lit. building bridges and repairing roads) leaves no corpse (i.e. no one can find your body to bury properly).