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Ambassador Bill Hagerty relied on President Donald Trump's endorsement to earn him the GOP nomination to compete for Tennessee's U.S. Senate seat.

Bill Hagerty, the former ambassador to Japan and state economic and development commissioner, chalked up a modest win for the Republican Party establishment Thursday night in the U.S. Senate primary. But it was a hollow victory as far as the establishment is concerned.

Hagerty is the overwhelming favorite to replace Lamar Alexander in the Senate after defeating outsider candidate Manny Sethi, a surgeon who looked to tread the same path as former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist before him. Hagerty for many months was the undisputed front-runner, but his easy lap at the polls by more than 10 percentage points belied what most observers saw as a tightening race in the final weeks.

Everything was calm as long as the race was perceived as not very close. Hagerty was just your good ol Sumner County boy made good. Really good. And by the way, Donald Trump endorsed him.

Bill Hagerty speaks after defeating Manny Sethi in the U.S. Senate Republican primary in Tennessee. Nashville Tennessean

Hagertys campaign trotted out the Trump endorsement every chance itgot. Thats not an exaggeration. Every chance. In commercials, in news releases, the first four words of campaign email blasts were Trump endorsed Bill Hagerty.

So Sethi struck back by of course saying he loved Donald Trump, too. In fact he loved Donald Trump more. The closer the race was perceived to be, the more Hagerty and Sethi turned on each other.

Sethi became Massachusetts Manny, in some sort of stretch reference to how Sethi might once have said something or belonged to an organization that maybe indicated something other than outright hatred for the Affordable Care Act.

Manny Sethi speaks following being defeated by Bill Hagerty in the U.S. Senate Republican primary in Tennessee Nashville Tennessean

Hagerty became Romneys guy, in reference to his previous support for Massachusetts Gov. turned Utah Sen. Mitt Romney. Of course, every Republican in Tennessee, presumably Sethi too, were Romney guys in 2012.

More: Meet Republican candidates running for US Senate in Tennessee

Republican Bill Hagerty waves to supporters who came to see him and Donald Trump Jr. on Jan. 28, 2020. Trump came to Gallatin to help raise money for Hagerty in his bid for an open U.S. Senate seat.(Photo: Larry McCormack / The Tennessean)

In short, the campaign became a farce something seemingly taken from a novel about a parody of a political campaign. Policy was in short supply. Especially on TV, the campaign became dominated by fears of immigrants and liberal mobs, evidently a big threat in the state, according to these two men. One commercial in support of Sethi even branded Alexander and Hagerty liberals, a claim so ridiculous that saying it with a straight face is an impossibility.

It seems like beating a dead horse at this point to once again say the Tennessee Republican Party wasnt always this way. It was once a party of ideas, and sometimes on the state level still is. This was the case not the least under Alexander as governor. In those days the right flank of the Democratic Party reached further than the left flank of the Republicans.

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In such an overlapping landscape, extremists were heard but generally ignored, if not outright ridiculed. This is not to say there were not spirited debates, or that everyone was committed to high principle, but look at what were putting up with now in a Republican land of personality cult.

Who is the most Trumpian Trumper of the Trumpists? That is what the Republican primary became.

Nobody commanded more affection among Republicans than did Ronald Reagan. For many years he maintained his 11th commandment:Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican. It was hardly of pure motive that Reagan adopted the commandment, but it was a fresh touch that does not exist now.

The reality is that the Republican Party is growing smaller nationally as Trump increasingly wears out the electorate. The outcome is a party of only the truest believers.

As a result, candidates like Sethi and Hagerty have to go more and more vicious on one another on the only issue that seems to matter: their loyalty to the president. And it all may not matter because Trumps electoral prospects arent terribly bright at the moment. What a shame it would be to have based your entire campaign on your loyalty to a man whom you pass going the opposite way as you enter Washington. And what would you stand for then?

Republicans long for the days of Reagan. And well they should, for he was the partys last hero, their last real vote-getter, wrote the historian H.W. Brands. But theyre not going to see another Reagan until they revive their Eleventh Commandment and stop beating up on one another.

Alex Hubbard is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network - Tennessee. Email him at dhubbard@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @alexhubbard7.

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As Trump wears out the electorate, his anointed favorite Bill Hagerty is one step closer to D.C. | Opinion - Tennessean