Republicans In Disarray
I have to say, it is almost amusing to see the beginnings of a fracturing on the previously monolithic right in the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat if it wasn’t so scary to see that it appears to be making the Republican party even more extreme than it has been. Like any other autocratic regime, and a cult like Trump’s is just another type of autocratic system, failure only means that members of the regime have been insufficiently faithful and must be purged. The current post-election period has become a scramble within the Republican party to prove just who is sufficiently faithful and who needs to be purged. It only follows that those that remain will become even more fanatical in their devotion. And it is an environment where the propagandists for the regime have now lost control of those that they have brainwashed.
It’s important to understand just how shocking Trump’s loss is to those who live inside the conservative media bubble. Over 90% of Republicans expected Trump to win and a significant portion of that group was entirely convinced that Trump would win in a landslide and that Biden could only win by cheating. With that in mind, it is no wonder that Trump’s attempted coup has seen such broad support not only among Republican voters but also among GOP elected officials. Among elected Republican officials that support ranges from active support to simply vocal to equivocal to complicit silence as they try to navigate the extraordinary chasm between reality and Trump’s base, with many of the officials moving through all of those levels of support over time. All of these efforts are an attempt to avoid being branded as insufficiently loyal by their base.
Perhaps the most remarkable spectacle of these new loyalty tests is occurring in Georgia. There the Governor, Secretary of State, and the top voting systems official in the state, all lifelong Republicans, have been castigated for not being willing to subvert the will of the voters for Trump’s benefit and have even been threatened with physical violence. Georgia’s two Republican Senators, both up for election in a runoff scheduled for early January, have called for the Secretary of State’s resignation. But even that was not sufficient for the base who claim the Senators have not done nearly enough to support Trump’s claims of a stolen election. And, just to illustrate the power of that base, even some of those physically threatened still support Trump.
Incredibly, the lawyers leading the Trump effort to overturn the election results in Georgia and around the country are out there telling Georgia Republicans not to vote in the upcoming runoff elections because the voting machines are rigged. At a “Stop the Steal” rally, one of the lawyers also attacked the two Republican Senators, asking, “Where is Kelly Loeffler here? Where is David Perdue? He ought to be standing right here”. He demanded that the Senators “publicly, repeatedly, consistently” demand that the Governor call a special legislative session to overturn the election results, adding, “And if they do not do it, they have not earned your vote. Don’t you give it to them. Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election?” In addition, Trump co-conspirator Roger Stone is using a PAC to also encourage Republican voters to boycott the runoff elections. For those who do vote, the PAC is encouraging them to write in the name of Donald Trump in both elections as a sign of support for the President. That will probably be difficult because the runoff is a choice between two candidates and offers no ability for write-in votes. Nevertheless, the PAC writes, “If we can do this, we have a real chance at getting these RINO senators to act on the illegitimate and corrupt election presided over by a Democrat party that is invested in the Communist takeover of Our Great Nation”.
These loyalty battles extend well beyond the states where Trump is claiming election fraud. Texas GOP Representative Dan Crenshaw, who represents one of the most obscenely gerrymandered districts in the country, has become a target for accusing one of the lawyers at the “Stop the Steal” rally in Georgia of previously supporting Democrats and of being a grifter only interested in seeing Republicans self-destruct. That prompted an ugly retort from conservative firebrand Michelle Malkin accusing Crenshaw of being “a globalist John McCain in an eyepatch who loves to party hardy while our country burns”. After Attorney General Bill Barr admitted that the DOJ had seen no evidence of election fraud, not only was he summoned to the White House for a thrashing but Lou Dobbs on Fox accused him of being part of the “deep state” and “perhaps compromised”.
Remarkably, the Republican intramural battle over loyalty to Trump has also extended to the party’s media propaganda outlets. Trump and his base were furious for Fox News calling Arizona so quickly on election night as that meant overturning the results would require contesting many more states. In many Republican circles, Fox has become a pariah and is now being threatened by OAN News and Newsmax for the loyalty of Trump and his supporters, especially after some of Fox’s nighttime hosts tried to break the reality of Trump’s loss to their viewers. Trump is now retweeting OAN far more than Fox and since the election Fox has also apparently lost millions of views to Newsmax which constantly pumps out reports supporting Trump’s attempted coup. For a segment of its core viewers, Fox has now become part of the hated “mainstream (liberal) media”. These defections have now imperiled Fox’s dominance of primetime, with CNN now taking on that role. And the right-wing media bubble will become even more insular and more extreme as the propagandists move over to Parler from Twitter and bring the base and therefore the Republican establishment with them.
It seems clear that, even in defeat, Trump will still be the dominant force inside the Republican party. His coup attempt has helped rake in hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and the Republican party. He is already reported to be planning to run again in 2024, even floating an announcement during Biden’s inauguration. Trump’s pathological narcissism requires him to stay in politics, the only place that he can feed his need for unconditional adulation and swindle millions from his supporters at the same time. He has admitted to a friend, while parading by some of those worshipping crowds, “Isn’t this incredible? After this, I could never return to ordering windows. It would be so boring”. And he has already scammed over $200 million from those same supporters as part of his attempted coup.
By even pretending he will run in 2024, Trump will freeze any Republican considering running. And he will, with the help of Newsmax, OAN, perhaps even a Trump network, and Parler, eviscerate any Republican who has the gumption to challenge him, while taking credit for all the good things that might happen over the next four years and spreading the blame for all the bad. Now, it’s possible the mainstream media will ignore him and he will fade away into just another has-been. Or perhaps Trump’s legal or financial problems will preclude him from even attempting a run in 2024. But another perfectly plausible scenario is that Democrats win one or both Senate seats in Georgia in January. Riding the post-vaccine economic recovery, Democrats gain even more seats in the Senate in 2022, where the map is again unfavorable to Republicans, and Democrats also manage to hold the House as well. By 2024, it’s quite likely that Trump or his chosen successor will be seen as the only candidate capable of rallying the base to restore Republican power.
For those ambitious Republicans like Mike Pence, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, “little” Marco Rubio, and “lyin'” Ted Cruz, both getting past Trump and moving the party beyond Trump will require becoming even more Trumpian than the man himself. The GOP is still Trump’s party and he demands loyalty. And he has the base and the money-raising power to enforce that loyalty. And, like any other cult after a purge, his party will be even more extreme and even more paranoid about those who appear unfaithful.