James Talarico, the radical Texas liberal running for the Senate, seems to have hired Senator John Cornyn’s deputy legislative director (whatever that is) to his campaign. Supporters of the Republican candidate, Ken Paxton, have taken to Twitter to continue settling scores over the Republican primary, saying this shows that Cornyn was never to be trusted because he had staff willing to defect to the Democrat.

This — like most attacks on Cornyn — is clearly an effort to excuse a very possible Paxton loss. “Sure he’s a bad candidate who wouldn’t fundraise or campaign, but Cornyn hired Democrats: He had to go!” In an ideal world, Paxton’s side would be more focused on actually winning the November election than prebutting claims that they were wrong to oust Cornyn in eventual favor of Talarico. But we don’t live in an ideal world.

At the same time, Cornyn is doing us responsible establishmentarians few favors in his response. While correctly noting that the Paxton forces should actually work on broadening the Republican coalition, he also said of his staffer defecting to a leftist’s campaign, “only in authoritarian countries does someone else get to decide where you work. Not in Texas.”

No one is saying that his former staffer can’t choose where he works. What they’re saying is that it’s bad for one of his staffers to switch sides like that. It’s not about authoritarianism; it’s about patronage.

If you want an example of someone who would have thrived in the age of Trump, look no further than Cicero — in particular, look to his letters. In his tenth letter to Atticus, Cicero explains how Atticus’ uncle, Caecilius, was defrauded by a fellow named Publius Varius. Caecilius went to Cicero (the ablest lawyer in Rome) to bring the lawsuit against Varius’s cousin, Caninius Satyrus, who was the receiver of the ill-gotten goods.

Cicero was going to take the case, but Satyrus sent his friend, Lucius Domitius, to ask him not to. Domitius, you see, “made himself most useful” both to Cicero and his brother, Quintus, when they were standing for office. Indeed, Domitius was one of whom Cicero said his own “hopes of success depend beyond any other man.” He therefore turned down the case.

“Not in Rome,” someone may have said. “Only in a monarchical tyranny does someone else get to decide where you work.” Roman politics — in many ways like American politics — revolved around bonds of patronage. It’s clear that Cicero’s political obligations didn’t permit him to take the case if that meant offending Domitius, whom he owed a political debt for his prior success as a candidate.

In the end, no one but Paxton has control of the Paxton campaign and how it is waged. The dustup with the Cornyn staffer is one of patronage and what it says about the interests of patron and client.