Posted on 05/06/2021 2:55:42 AM PDT by RandFan
The war for the Republican Party’s soul lasted about as long as a season of “The Apprentice.” Former President Trump won.
Thursday marks four months to the day since the Jan 6. insurrection Trump incited, for which he was impeached.
At the time, top GOP figures including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) spoke out against Trump. McConnell at one point hinted at the possibility of a significant GOP vote to remove the then-president, in the apparent hope of ridding the party of the insurrection’s stain.
It’s all changed now.
Trump’s most aggressive GOP critic, Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), looks likely to be ousted from her House leadership position within days. McConnell, who spoke out in Cheney’s defense during a February push against her, has conspicuously declined to do so this time.
Cheney is not retreating from her view that basic democratic values require a repudiation of Trump, his role in the riot and his ongoing false allegations of election fraud.
Speaking to donors earlier this week, she called Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen “a poison in the bloodstream of our democracy.”
But the writing is on the wall for Cheney, and she appears to know it. Politico reported Wednesday that she is not bothering to canvass members in the hope of holding onto her leadership role.
Her likely challenger — and likely replacement — is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a Trump loyalist. The former president endorsed her in a statement Wednesday, calling her “a far superior choice” to Cheney, whom he labeled “a warmongering fool who has no business in Republican Party leadership.”
Stefanik is being openly backed by the No. 2 House Republican, Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.).
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has also withdrawn his support from Cheney, and was caught in an unguarded moment on a Fox News live mic saying he has “had it” with her, according to Axios.
The attempts to remove Cheney “are being driven by the rank-and-file, not the Freedom Caucus,” one GOP operative with close ties to Trump World told this column earlier this week.
But it’s not just about the battle between Cheney and Trump.
Four months ago, the then-president was wounded and vulnerable. He had just become the first White House incumbent since President George H.W. Bush in 1992 to lose a fight for reelection. Republicans lost two seats in Georgia in a special election held the day before the insurrection, costing them control of the Senate — a needless fumble for which many blamed Trump. And then there was the riot itself.
“There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said on the Senate floor in February.
But since then, Trump has reexerted his control over the party, even from exile on his Florida estate of Mar-a-Lago.
The vast majority of the party on Capitol Hill is in his thrall, whether for reasons of sincere conviction or because they are cognizant of his astonishingly tenacious hold on the Republican grassroots.
Polls usually put Trump’s approval rating among GOP voters north of 80 percent.
The dissenters are on defense everywhere.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was booed at his own state party convention in Utah last weekend, only narrowly escaping a vote of censure.
Less prominent figures who have sought to advance a Trump-skeptical Republicanism have been doused by a cold shower of reality.
One such figure, a Marine Corps Reserves major named Michael Wood, ran for Congress in the recent all-party primary in the 6th District of Texas. He netted 3 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, old foes who long since made their peace with Trump have gone to even greater lengths to demonstrate fealty to him.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had proclaimed “Count me out! Enough is enough” on the Senate floor in the hours after the insurrection. He recently popped up on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show to promote a contest where donors would be entered into a draw to win a golf outing with Trump and himself.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who tangled bitterly with Trump during the 2016 GOP primary, on Tuesday tweeted a photo of himself and the former president dining together at Mar-a-Lago. Cruz informed his followers that Trump was “in great spirits!”
“Nothing like reminiscing about attempted coups over a bouquet of flowers,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) retorted.
The GOP’s embrace of Trump comes with serious political risks.
Party leaders may have calculated that they can’t win without the backing of the fervent Trump base. But that base is insufficient to win national elections — and perhaps competitive statewide ones, too.
The GOP base demands their party ties itself to Trump. The general public recoils.
Trump lost the popular vote to President Biden by about 7 million votes. He is identified in the public mind with disastrous denialism on the COVID-19 pandemic. And he’s simply never been all that popular with the public at large. An Economist/YouGov poll last week indicated just 39 percent of adults view him favorably.
The Beltway consensus on Trump is that he is unlikely to run again in 2024. But that same consensus has been consistently wrong about him. And, if he does seek the nomination of a party that has stretched itself to appease him and his supporters, who will defeat him from the inside? Likely no one.
The GOP has made its choice. Now, it has to live with the risks.
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
“democratic” values do not apply. We are a republic, one needs republican values to lead.
The UniParty mouth organ trying to spin down MAGA and side-line Trump...
Lying right out of the gate.
Democrats. It’s what they do. It’s who they are.
You can tell he’s not enjoying writing this piece
You can tell he’s not enjoying writing this piece
Trump brings clarity.
Republican voters tend not to like RINOs even if they are basically forced to vote for them due to lack of competition.
I’m not forced to vote for anyone. The GOP does not own me. They need to figure that out and they need to punish Republicans who support Cheney. She’s poison. All RINOs are poison. They are not the lesser of two evils. They are evil.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Really? Somebody has been drinking the Leftist Kool Aid.
Lizard Cheney's fate was sealed -- and all these nitwits began running around publicly currying favor with Trump -- after it was reported a week ago that since Trump established his PAC, he has raised more money than the RNC and DNC combined.
The UniParty mouth organ trying to spin down MAGA and side-line Trump...
Trump is sitting on the beach in FL and not in the White House. We can’t afford any more “victories” like that one.
If this statement were true -- if the Trump base was insufficient to win national elections, then the RINOs would go all out to keep Liz Cheney in her leadership position. They were behind her in February, but after 3 months, donations to the GOP have fizzled away to nothing and they must be very alarmed by the internal polling.
And we all know that the number of Trump voters WAS enough to win a national election by a landslide. It was the RINO-controlled state legislatures who delivered the steal to Biden by refusing to enforce voter ID and permitting the cheat-by-mail-in ballots to be foisted on the electorate.
Primary season starts in earnest in March. It's right around the corner.
Vote out every RINO who must face a primary in 2022 and replace them with conservative patriots, especially in the state legislatures. If we can do that, then we have a shot at taking back the WH in 2024.
Yeah, stopped reading right there.
Wishful thinking.
If that were true Trump would not have received 75 million votes!!!
That was before the RINO treachery of 2020. They crossed a line in the RINO-controlled state legislatures of GA, PA, AZ, MI, and WI when they refused to enforce voter ID and gave the win to Biden. The RINOs in Congress like Cheney, Murkowski,McConnell, Kinzinger, and the others who voted to impeach Trump clearly showed us who they are.
No more will it be the case that RINOs will run unopposed in their primaries. There is going to be a wave of conservative challengers to face them backed by Trump. And the once smug RINOs seem to finally be realizing this. The internal polling must be devastating for them to oust Cheney.
Cheney went full Karen. Never go full Karen.
“Lying right out of the gate.”
Yes. It’s more than just lying. It’s agenda-driven propaganda, pure and simple.
It’s also important to know that they despise you as much as they despise Trump.
“But that base is insufficient to win national elections”
Give the Biden administration a little more time and it won’t be.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.