Reporting for CNN today, Stephen Collinson wrote that the GOP “is plunging into an identity crisis after its November red wave dissolved. And while almost everyone with power and influence in the GOP agrees it’s a mess, no one can agree on how to fix it. Or whether Donald Trump should be involved.” How about the whole MAGA movement, which is so much of the GOP’s base now and is elevating crackpots like Marjorie Traitor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Gym Jordan, Paul Gosar, etc to positions of power? He wrote that “the combined shockwaves of broader midterm elections disappointment” and Trump’s leap into the 2024 presidential race “are causing angst and internal recriminations about the way forward. And the smaller-than-expected House majority– after losing the Senate– has only invigorated debate over how the GOP can regain other centers of power and whether Trump’s influence could doom it to electoral underperformance again.”
Leadership fights in both chambers of Congress are, meanwhile, exposing deep disunity about how to win back independent and swing voters who have often been scared away by Trump’s extremism. Many lawmakers blame Trump for his fixation on the 2020 election and his lies that he was cheated out of power for their failure to win back the Senate.
But some maintain that the party isn’t Trumpy enough. The ex-president’s allies, for instance, failed in an attempt to oust veteran Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell– a longtime Trump antagonist– on Wednesday. But if House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wants to be the next speaker, he cannot afford to alienate Trump’s acolytes who will wield huge power in the new House, meaning that one half of Capitol Hill at least will dance to the ex-president’s tune.
Away from Congress there are possible signs of a political realignment as some big outside donors break cover and demand the party leave Trump behind. And conservative kingmaker Rupert Murdoch also seems to be putting his finger on the scale, as his New York Post steps up its mockery of the former president.
The level of criticism, and even ridicule, of Trump after his event at Mar-a-Lago lacked the energy of 2016 was unusual and striking and could herald a broader change in attitude toward the two-time Republican nominee.
But in some ways, we’ve seen all this before. Several times, including after the US Capitol insurrection in 2021, the party has looked set to walk away, before testing the wind on Trump’s dominance of its base and appeasing him yet again.
…The fresh infighting represents the latest struggle for the soul of the GOP, which predates Trump’s arrival, between radical grassroots activists and deeply conservative but more establishment forces. The party is now more populist, working class and performative, thanks to Trump’s shattering of its internationalist, corporate legacy.
The worry, of course, is the base, much of it believer in primitive evangelicalism, QAnon conspiracy theories and fascist/authoritarian ideology. Yesterday 3 Washington Post reporters, Caroline Kitchener, Amy Wang and Michelle Boorstein, noted that a former top Trump “spiritual advisor,” evangelical huckster James Robison publicly announced that Trump acts “like a little elementary schoolchild.”
In a speech on Wednesday night, Robison told the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (an anti-Choice homophobic hate group) that “If Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?”
His audience included dozens of Republican state legislators from across the country… ‘Everything you wanted him to hear— every single thing you ever prayed for him to hear— came through these lips right straight into his face,’ Robison told the crowd Wednesday, his voice growing lower and louder. ‘And with the same force you’ve heard me talking to you, I spoke it to him.’ By now, Robison was shouting, practically spitting his words out as he recalled what he said he told Trump.”
Sir, you act like a little elementary school child and you shoot yourself in the foot every morning you get up and open your mouth! The more you keep your mouth closed, the more successful you’re gonna be!
The trio wrote that “The sharp words from Robison, who after the 2016 election called Trump ‘a supernatural answer to prayer,’ came just a day after Trump announced he would run for reelection in 2024. His campaign announcement has been met with a relatively muted response from Republicans and public figures who used to be his most fervent supporters, including from the evangelical church… In an essay sent to the Washington Post earlier this month, Mike Evans, a former member of [Trump’s] evangelical advisory board, said he would not vote for Trump again and recalled how he once left a Trump rally ‘in tears because I saw Bible believers glorifying Donald Trump like he was an idol. All of us knew that Trump had character flaws, but we considered our relationship with him transactional,’ wrote Evans, a Texas author and Christian Zionist who raises money for outreach and support in Israel. ‘We wanted Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. We wanted his support of our biblical values. We all wanted his support for the State of Israel. Donald Trump indeed kept and exceeded his promises to us.’ However, Evans said Trump had done damage by turning ‘the pulpit that we preach from’ into a political platform. ‘Donald Trump can’t save America. He can’t even save himself. He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,’ Evans wrote. ‘I cannot do that anymore.’”