[ad_1]
The start of President Donald Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial on a single charge of inciting an insurgency on the U.S. Capitol comes as the Republican Party is under siege.
As the GOP grapples with its future and Trump’s role in it, Democrats grasp the deep divisions within the Republican ranks on its right wing and seek to define the party’s front line by its most extreme members. .
The House Democrats’ campaign apparatus deployed $ 500,000 for an ad campaign linking Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Minority Leader, and seven vulnerable House Republicans in the districts, President Joe Biden last year won against extremist rhetoric from Georgia Marjorie Taylor Greene QAnon Conspiracy Theory.
Democrats’ first shot accuses Republicans in the swing district of standing “with Q, not with you.”
“The Republicans in Washington have made their choice – they have chosen to give in to the murderous QAnon mob that has taken control of their party,” said Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, DN.Y., chairman of the campaign committee of the Democratic Congress. They “refuse to hold those responsible for the attack on Capitol Hill to account, offering nothing but empty words after years of lies and conspiracy theories.”
The Washington Post fact-checker wrote that the effort to bind members to conspiracy theory is “misleading” but all eight voted against Trump’s second indictment, prompted by the country’s own rhetoric. former president before a crowd of his supporters marched to the Capitol in an effort to thwart Biden’s certification of victory. And while some have criticized Trump’s conduct, a smaller number have voted against certifying electoral votes from at least one of the two battlefields – Arizona and Pennsylvania – based on allegations baseless fraud repeatedly backed by Trump and the far-right flank.
“We have to hold these Republicans accountable,” said former Democratic Representative Donna Shalala, who lost her Miami-based district last year to the current Representative. Maria Elvira Salazar, one of the Republican women targeted in the new Democratic ads.
Democratic strategist Ian Russell called voters’ initial presentation a “road test” and praised Maloney for the early attack.
“I think it’s a smart move,” Russell told ABC News Monday. “President Maloney is capitalizing on the fault lines within the Republican Party. They have cracks in their coalition and he’s taking a crowbar out of them and showing the American people, showing voters, that Republicans are on the side of the dangerous extremists. who stormed the Capitol, who has all these opinions that are not doing well in districts across America. “
As Republicans push back on attacks from Democrats under the newly installed presidency, they also reflect on how to reconcile their differences internally in the post-Trump era.
According to some strategists, their ability to unite over the next two years will be crucial in determining their success in winning back the lost majority in the 2018 midterm elections.
“The Republican brand has been beaten by Trump and some of the recent extremism … it’s a consequence of Trumpism,” said Ken Spain, a former senior official with the Republican National Committee of Congress. “Republicans must unite around an economic argument that will probably resonate with voters in two years.
Even with Democrats taking a page from their playbook, the GOP is making clear their plans to continue the culture war offensive against their rivals.
“We will continue to hammer home Democrats for their murderous socialist agenda and leave the fringe plots to the DCCC,” said Michael McAdams, NRCC communications director, in a statement saying the campaign arm will stick. to 2020. strategy.
Throughout the last cycle, the GOP relentless brand Democratic candidates as the party of “defund the police” in an effort to put the more moderate members on par with the progressive wing, the party has significantly reduced the Democratic majority in the House.
Shalala admitted that the Republicans’ strategy was “certainly” effective in stifling the healthcare-centric message of the Democrats in the last cycle. Looking ahead, when the party defends its tiny margin next year, Democrats need to give voters a reason to vote for them and not just against Republicans, she said.
“Campaigns are not about candidates. They aim to improve people’s lives, ”she said. “We cannot win by tying every Republican to just the right wing.”
“We’ve got to have some substantive things we’ve done. And since we control both houses, as well as the presidency, Democrats are going to be able to say, ‘Look, this is what happens when you elect Democrats. You’ cast your vote if you elect a Republican, ”she continued.
Shalala has pointed to Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which Democrats in Congress are developing, as a question that resonates and one of the ways Democrats are improving lives. of their constituents.
“And the Democrats will be totally rewarded for it,” she said.
The Democrats’ decision to capitalize on open wounds within the Republican caucus comes as they seek a new polarizing figure after Trump, one who can be as unifying and energizing to the base as the former president.
“With Trump disappearing from the scene, Democrats need a Boogeyman, or in this case, a woman,” Spain said.
But like Shalala, the Republican strategist is not convinced that the Democrats’ inaugural strategy alone will influence voters.
“It’s likely that a few Republicans will squirm,” Spain said, “but at the end of the day you tie the actions of an obscure member to an entire party and that will be difficult to do.”
Spain compared the Democrats’ efforts to a similar campaign they waged in 2009 when “Democrats attempted to link Republican members to Sarah Palin (and) the 2010 election had nothing to do with Sarah Palin “.
“This is unlikely to have a significant impact on the outcome of the 2022 election,” he continued, with Democrats controlling all three levers of power. “2022 will be a referendum on Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress. Period.”
But this obscure member has caused a headache for the GOP and reflects the larger divide within the party over whether it should continue to align with Trump or move away from him.
Last week, McCarthy decided not to punish Greene, who said she spoke to Trump and was “grateful for his support” at the height of calls for his expulsion for his history of inflammatory comments – ranging from the endorsing violence against Democrats to spreading false statements about the school shootings, and espousing QAnon conspiracy theories. Greene has since expressed regret for some of his past comments from the House, but has never offered an explicit apology for his conduct.
The approach of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has diverged from that of his House counterpart. He suggested that Greene’s adoption of conspiracy theories amounted to party “cancer”. McCarthy left it up to Democrats to penalize the new recruit, and Greene was stripped of his committees in a vote in the full House, in which 11 Republicans broke ranks and joined the Democrats to remove her from two committee missions.
Russell said the GOP does not appear to reassess after losing the White House and Senate or getting rid of their former leader.
“The two parties after losing a national election dust themselves off … and find a way back,” he said. “What you’ve seen since the election, however, is Republicans doubling down on Trumpian chaos. Marjorie Taylor Greene, QAnon, those are all symptoms of the underlying disease, which is that chaos that’s at its heart – which is taken over by modern conservatism and the modern Republican Party. “
“That’s all they have in the gas tank right now,” he said of Trump’s political embrace. “And that won’t get them very far.”
Party leaders can stay the course, but in the eyes of Americans, the GOP faces a broader perception problem with their extremist factions.
In a new ABC News / Ipsos poll, Americans say there are more radical extremists in the GOP than the Democratic Party by a 17 point margin. And many more Democrats – 80% – think there are more radical extremists in the GOP than there are, while 57% of Republicans say the same about the Democratic Party.
The flood of retirements from their conference, most recently Republican Senators Rob Portman and Richard Shelby, two establishment figures within the party, further complicates the Republicans’ problems. They probably won’t be the last, Russell said, as the announcements boost forecasts of Republican retirements in the coming months.
“With the center of gravity of House conferences so far to the right, this is going to become an increasingly difficult place for mainstream conservatives,” Russell said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you were to see some of the longer term members … realize that this is not an environment they can do anything with.”
[ad_2]
Source link