On Monday morning, Punchbowl reported that Missouri freshman Republican senator, Eric Schmitt, has emerged as a major fundraiser for the NRSC. Though no one ever heard of him, his endorsement of Tim Sheehy for the Montana senate seat is seen as a blow for neo-fascist extremist Matt Rosendale, who would like to run as well but has gotten a resounding thumbs down from the Senate Republican establishment. The feeling is that he’s one of the most extreme members of the House and no one needs him bringing his toxicity and divisive nature to the Senate.
Generally speaking, conservative Republicans in the Senate are uncomfortable being called out by fascists for not being extreme enough. Alexander Bolton reported that the right-wing populism (fascism) that is increasingly taking over the GOP is scaring the bejesus out of them. “GOP senators,” he wrote, “are saying they’re being increasingly confronted by constituents who buy into discredited conspiracy theories such as the claim that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election or that federal agents incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Growing distrust with government institutions, from the FBI, CIA and Department of Justice to the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health, make it more difficult for Republican lawmakers to govern.”
And they’re afraid that this extremism is going to screw up their chances to capitalize on Biden’s unpopularity and possibly even prevent them from winning back the Senate— although that seems hard to believe given the 2024 map.
“We should be concerned about this as Republicans. I’m having more ‘rational Republicans’ coming up to me and saying, ‘I just don’t know how long I can stay in this party,’” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). “Now our party is becoming known as a group of kind of extremist, populist over-the-top [people] where no one is taking us seriously anymore.
“You have people who felt some allegiance to the party that are now really questioning, ‘Why am I [in the party?]” she added. “I think it’s going to get even more interesting as we move closer to the elections and we start going through some of these primary debates.
“Is it going to be a situation of who can be more outlandish than the other?” she asked.
Some Senate Republicans worry the populist winds are downgrading their chances of picking up seats in 2024.
“There are an astonishing number of people in my state who believe the election was stolen,” said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to talk about the growing popularity of conservative conspiracy theories at home.
It’s important to mention that few Republican senator have had the guts to vigorously and consistently push back against the MAGA and QAnon conspiracy theories and tell their constituents that they’re being lied to. They’re afraid of their own base.
Bolton used Arizona as an example, where Sinema is detested by Democrats and probably can’t win reelection— if she even runs. Ruben Gallego will be the Democratic nominee and he’s out-raising her, even though she’s getting massive contributions from corporations, special interests and lobbyists and he’s being funded by small donors. So what’s the problem? Republicans should be able to take advantage of this, right? Well… the prohibitive frontrunner in GOP World is MAGA psychopath and purveyor of conspiracy theories, Kari Lake. Last cycle, Lake narrowly lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs in the gubernatorial election and dragged down the Republicans running for Attorney General and Secretary of State with her. “One senior Senate Republican strategist, assessing the race, lamented that ‘the Republican Party in Arizona is a mess.’”
Republican senators say they are alarmed at how many Republicans, including those with higher levels of education and income, buy the unsubstantiated claims that the last presidential election was stolen.
A second Republican senator who spoke with The Hill said the growing strength of radical populism “makes it a lot more difficult to govern, it makes it difficult to talk to constituents.”
“There are people who surprise me— I’m surprised they have those views. It’s amazing to me the number of people, the kind of people who think the election was stolen,” the lawmaker said. “I don’t want to use this word but it’s not just a ‘red-neck’ thing. It’s people in business, the president of a bank, a doctor.”
…“In my state there are a lot of folks who see Washington as disconnected, they see their way of life threatened. There’s something that generates discontent that elected officials take advantage of,” the senator said.
…GOP senators also have to regularly distance themselves from the radical proposals of populist conservatives in the House, such as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who earlier this year proposed cutting Department of Justice and FBI funding in response to federal investigations of Trump.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (SD) pushed back on calls to defund the Justice Department, telling reporters: “Are we going to get rid of the Justice Department? No. I think defunding is a really bad idea.”
Thune later explained to The Hill: “There are seasons, swings back and forth in politics and we’re in one now where the dominant political thinking is more populist with respect to national security, foreign policy, some domestic issues.”
But he said “that stuff comes and goes and it’s built around personalities,” alluding to the broadly held view that Trump’s election to the presidency in 2016 and his lasting influence over the party has put his brand of populism at the forefront.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), an advisor to the Senate Republican leadership, said bread-and-butter conservative economic ideas still resonated with voters, but he acknowledged “the cable news shows” continue to keep attention on themes that Trump likes to emphasize, such as election fraud and the “deep-state” control of the federal government.
“So there are some people paying attention to that but most people are trying to just get on with their lives,” he said. “There’s a lot of distrust of Washington, and who can blame people.”
“It concerns me that people lose faith in their institutions, but this has been a long story throughout our history. It’s nothing new although it’s troubling,” he said.
Senate Republicans tried to wave off their House colleagues from advancing articles of impeachment authored by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) against President Biden and rolled their eyes at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA attempt to expunge Trump’s impeachment record.
Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) warned, “I fear that snap impeachments will become the norm, and they mustn’t.”
Asked about efforts to erase Trump’s impeachment record, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) quoted the popular show Succession: “Logan Roy made a good point. These are not serious people.”
Romney, who was the GOP nominee for president in 2012 before Trump took over the party four years later, last year called Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) “morons” for speaking at a white nationalist event in Florida.
Asked this week about Tuberville’s defense of white nationalism and how it reflected on the GOP, Romney said: “Our party has lots of problems, add that to the list.”
The party of Reagan has transformed into the party of Trump, and to the dismay of some veteran Republican lawmakers, it doesn’t look like it’s going back to what it was anytime soon.
One ascendent young conservative leader, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who supported objecting to certifying Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021, thinks the Republican Party’s embrace of populism is more than a passing fad.
He says the new era of politics is more than a battle between Trump allies and Trump haters, or even between Republicans and Democrats.
Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference two years ago, he declared: “We have been governed by a political consensus forged by a political class that has lost touch with what binds us together as Americans. And it has lost sight of the basic requirements of liberty.”
“The great divide of our time is not between Trump supporters and Trump opponents, or between suburban voters and rural ones, or between Red America and Blue America,” he said. “No, the great divide of our time is between the political agenda of the leadership elite and the great and broad middle of our society. And to answer the discontent of our time, we must end that divide.”
Hawley is best known in Washington as a sleazy demagogue and profoundly dishonest person, unconcerned about the interests of the country and only interested in advancing his own career. If you’d like to help replace him with Lucas Kunce, you can do that here.
This isn’t just a problem in the Senate, of course. Back to Punchbowl, we see that the nihilists and fascists in the House Freedom Caucus are “forcing their colleagues in swing districts to embrace red meat conservative causes as they exert outsized sway over the GOP conference. Fresh off passing the FY2024 defense authorization bill that included several conservative ‘culture war’ amendments and heading with confidence into a contentious appropriations season, the right flank is riding high. In fact, several HFC members we spoke to say that welcoming their viewpoints can win elections, including in purple districts with Democratic and independent voters. They’re even encouraging their vulnerable GOP colleagues to come on board… Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) said he’s “sympathetic” to his colleagues in tough districts, but argued members who are elected as Republicans should stand with the party and with conservative causes. ‘Republicans have to deliver Republican change on behalf of Republican votes,’ Bishop told us. ‘That can’t be subordinated to the notion that somebody might wear a Republican label but serve basically as a Democrat in a marginal district.’”
The weakness in this argument, of course, is that without those “marginal” districts, Republicans would not be in the majority. This is the push and pull that Republicans have experienced consistently since 2010, when they took back the majority and the House Republican Conference shifted decidedly to the right.
Traditionally, it’s up to the leadership to temper the wings of their party and to protect more moderate lawmakers from having to take tough votes. But in this Congress, the narrow majority has forced GOP leaders to side with hardliners and urged the middle to support bills loaded up with conservative provisions.
The DCCC is targeting 33 GOP seats next year, including Perry and other Freedom Caucus members such as Reps. Lauren Boebert (CO) and Anna Paulina Luna (FL). Boebert narrowly won reelection by less than 600 votes last year, after facing a near upset by a Democratic newcomer.
Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY), who represents a district won by President Joe Biden in 2020, criticized the conservative bloc for painting a broad picture of success for the party.
“I don’t think it’s a very smart move to reflect on what works in another member’s district,” Molinaro told us.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), who represents another Biden-won district, said he has to keep his independent and Democratic supporters in mind when he takes votes on the floor.
“Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by close to 80-85,000, so we’re not getting sent to Washington, D.C. to represent the people because we’re only being supported by conservative Republicans,” D’Esposito told us. “Anybody in elected office needs to be careful of the votes they make.”
This dynamic was on full display when the GOP’s most vulnerable members supported a slew of controversial conservative amendments to the NDAA, including one to rescind the Pentagon’s abortion policy. Democrats are already planning to target Republicans based on those votes.
Other moderate Republicans said they were frustrated by the Freedom Caucus’ constant disruption of regular order when the group feels like its demands aren’t being met.
“Those folks are more interested about their own personal identity than they are about doing work for their district,” Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) told us.
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA), who flipped a Democratic seat in 2022, said she wanted more voices to be heard by party leadership when HFC takes up much of their attention.
“I don’t love it,” Kiggans told us. “All voices should be heard equally. We all have districts that we represent and when we feel like a faction of our party is getting heard louder than others, I don’t think that’s right.”