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RRepublicans in the House of Representatives remain fascinated by Donald Trump and fear his base. On Thursday, 95% of Republicans in the House refused to strip freshman Marjorie Taylor Greene – a gun, spitting hatred and conspiratorial – of her committee duties. The murderous consequences of the January 6 uprising did not change anything.
Trump is not in power but his spirit lives. The anger and resentment of the Republican base will likely define the party’s trajectory in the months and years to come. QAnon is now a mainstay of the party, as much as parliamentary minority leader Kevin McCarthy can disavow knowledge of his existence.
Greene’s sins are real, not imagined. Over the years, she blamed the California wildfires on a Jewish laser beam from space, claimed 9/11 was internal work, and suggested school shootings were staged. In 2018 and 2019, she endorsed social media comments that appeared to support the assassination or execution of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. (Recently, Greene has partly gone back to some of his more disturbing past remarks.)
Sadly, the Republican Party has turned into a swamp of fever fueled by racist animosity linked to fear and loathing for modernity. A normal political party would not have someone like Greene in power. But Republicans operate today as a fringe group.
Likewise, the mob that attacked the Capitol cannot simply be seen as an explosion of conspiratorial rage. The insurgent horde left a trail of dead and wounded. Military veterans, real estate brokers and apparently prominent members of the American middle class have filled the ranks of the rioters. Republican donors with deep pockets are said to have helped make the carnage possible.
Yet the disgruntled disconnect that propelled Trump’s electoral upheaval in 2016 threatens to undermine Republican efforts to reclaim the House and Senate. In January, tens of thousands of voters left the Republican Party. In Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Utah, the party suffered a cumulative loss of more than 30,000 voters on its lists.
Politics is about addition, not subtraction. An exodus of suburban school-educated moms and dads is not what McCarthy needs to wrest the hammer from the speaker. Likewise, this hemorrhage will not help Mitch McConnell dethrone Chuck Schumer from his perch as Senate Majority Leader.
Liz Cheney retaining the No. 3 position in the leadership of the Republican House does not alter this pockmarked and toxic landscape. Cheney’s relentless victory over 61 ill-informed colleagues is a testament to his own courage and the desire of the best artisans in the Republican Party to keep the existing power structure intact. Nothing more.
Cheney and Greene each won the day among House Republicans, but the Georgia rookie actually garnered more of their support. Cheney’s ascending arc is over, while Greene is free to embark on an endless fundraising frenzy and tweet as he pleases. Freedom can be another word for not losing anything.
Indeed, at the state level, religious-type devotion to Trump is the kingdom’s operational credo. Those who refuse to kiss the ring are the new heretics.
Arizona Republicans blamed Cindy McCain, the late senator’s wife, for supporting Joe Biden. They also criticized Doug Ducey, the state’s Republican governor, for refusing to steal the election.
In Wyoming, 10 Republican county organizations have censored Cheney for his support for Trump’s impeachment, with more expected in the coming weeks. Already, Cheney faces a major challenge.
Meanwhile, Nebraska’s Ben Sasse faces possible censorship in his home state. He earned their anger for condemning Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy. Once upon a time, Sasse wrote a book subtitled Why We Hate Each Other.
For the record, Sasse is one of five Senate Republicans to oppose the dismissal of the impeachment charges against the 45th president. He also refused to support Trump four years ago and last November as well. A Presbyterian who goes to church, Sasse frame things that way: “Politics is not about the weird cult of a guy.”
Really?
Even now, Trump is the first choice for his party’s presidential nomination in 2024. Beyond that, more than three-quarters of Republicans believe there was widespread voter fraud despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For many, the truth is too much to deal with.
Either way, Trump’s big lie has taken hold and won’t go away anytime soon. The tectonics and demographic disparities that drove Trump to power are still with us. Biden’s election did not change that.
In practice, only a series of consecutive electoral losses can get Republicans out of their enchantment with the ex-reality TV host. Until then, Trump will remain the dominant force in the Republican Party. In Greene’s words, it’s his party, “it doesn’t belong to anyone else.”
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