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- Veteran GOP Congressman Tom Cole has warned the Republican Party faces a worse crisis than after Watergate.
- A rift has opened between GOP lawmakers who want Trump’s legacy purged and lawmakers and grassroots supporters who remain loyal.
- The GOP was able to bounce back quickly from the scandal that followed the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, but experts say the problems it now faces are in some ways deeper.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
Veteran Republican Congressman Tom Cole, of Oklahoma, told the New York Times that the crisis the Republican Party faces in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency is more serious than it has faced after the Watergate scandal.
“I have been in Republican politics for 40 years professionally – so right after Watergate – and I’m going to tell you it’s been the worst time ever,” Cole told The Times.
His remarks come amid the chaos within the GOP following Trump’s departure.
A rift exists between lawmakers who want to oust Donald Trump’s party in the wake of the Capitol riot and his attempt to subvert the election and a group that has remained loyal to the former president.
Party leaders in Congress, Parliamentary Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have blamed violence at Trump’s feet in the wake of the riot. McConnell has indicated that he is ready to condemn Trump after the House of Representatives impeached him for his alleged role in inciting the riot.
But over the past week, the two have switched positions, with polls showing the former president remains extremely popular with grassroots supporters of the party despite his role in inciting the riot.
In an apparent attempt to mend the relationship, McCarthy visited Trump at his post-White House home, Mar-a-Lago, Florida. After Thursday’s meeting, Trump’s Save America PAC boasted that the former president’s “popularity has never been as strong as it is today, and his endorsement means more than maybe be any approval at any time “.
McConnell has backed down from his stance in favor of impeachment, voting last week in the Senate to reject impeachment as the prospect of conviction of Trump in his impeachment trial fades.
Adding to the crisis facing Republicans, Trump has suspended the prospect of creating a third party, the Patriot Party, a move that would likely split the Republican vote, leaving it nearly impossible to win back Congress midway through 2022.
The fallout from the Watergate break-in in 1972 is widely regarded as the biggest political scandal in recent U.S. history, with Republican President Richard Nixon resigning in 1974 when his role in the crime came to light.
The party was able to rebound fairly quickly after the Nixon scandals, with Gerald Ford taking over the presidency for the remainder of Nixon’s term and the party regaining power in 1980 following one-term presidency of Democrat Jimmy Carter.
In New York magazine, political analyst Ed Kilgore identified several key differences that would make it harder for the GOP to recover from Trump’s scandals than from Nixon’s, including its enduring popularity and lack of alternative leaders.
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