The current Republican Party
The Republican Party Civil War, which we have been talking about for many years, hit a critical point yesterday, as U.S. House members kicked Congresswoman Liz Cheney out of her number three House leadership post as House Republican Conference Chair. Cheney’s crime was simply to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election and declare that Joe Biden is America’s legitimately accepted president, as every U.S. state formally has done, thus rejecting the “Big Lie” promoted by Donald Trump that his 7 million popular vote, 74 electoral vote loss to Biden in the 2020 election was somehow the result of a massive fraud. Trump even fomented an unprecedented, deadly terrorist attack on our U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election results based on his Big Lie. Not coincidentally, this week, more than 100 Republican former office holders, including cabinet members, national security officials, ambassadors, state governors and others, are threatening to leave the GOP and form a third party. According to this group, “forces of conspiracy, division, and despotism” are threatening to take over the Republican Party, putting our country’s freedoms at risk. Therefore, it’s fair to say that the Republican Party has moved well beyond “disarray” (a favorite word that the mainstream media frequently and incorrectly apply to the Democrats) and into full-blown crisis.
On Tuesday evening before her ouster, Rep. Cheney gave a speech on the House floor, saying:
Today we face a threat America has never seen before. A former president, who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol in an effort to steal the election, has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence…. We must speak the truth. Our election was not stolen. And America has not failed…. This is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans. Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar…. I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president’s crusade to undermine our democracy.
Now, given the large number of Republicans who apparently sided against Congresswoman Cheney (we say “apparently” because House Republicans, too chicken to go on record with a formal vote, booted Cheney with only a voice vote), much of the GOP may be united behind Donald Trump and his Big Lie. If so, the Big Lie seems like a strange hill for the Republican Party to die on. Donald Trump and the Republicans filed over 60 lawsuits alleging the conspiracy of massive voter fraud or theft by the Democrats after the 2020 elections. In virtually every case, the courts threw out the lawsuits, ruling that there was no evidence to back up the allegations. To continue to perpetuate the Big Lie, therefore, seems self-defeating and delusional. In contrast, note that, after losing the 2012 elections, the Republican Party published an “Autopsy Report,” which gave numerous recommendations as to what the party needed to do (for example, more outreach to female and minority voters) to achieve future success. Likewise, Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said at the time that the GOP was in a “demographic death spiral” regarding Hispanic voters, and that Republicans had to, at a minimum, pass comprehensive immigration reform in order to stop its slide.
Sadly, the Republicans ignored their own recommendations. Instead of trying to come up with better policies and market them to more voters, they are now going with denial of reality plus voter suppression to try to win future elections, even at the risk of splitting their party in two. None of it bodes well for the health of the GOP.
Photo by John Ferguson, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/WjEudw
