Mixed Signals
I’m not a Republican, and it’s not for me to say what the Republican Party, the Party founded on anti-slavery and Lincoln, should do right now. But I can describe what I’m observing, and what road the Grand Old Party is traveling.
The election of 2020 gave the Republican Party mixed signals. Sure, Donald Trump lost. But he got the second most votes EVER by a Presidential candidate. And he did it in the biggest US election of the modern era, with 66.3% of the voters showing up. So while it’s easy (especially for me, A Democrat) to say that Trump was repudiated, that’s not quite fair. Trump was defeated, in an election which has been scrutinized by both sides for fairness. But there are 74 million Americans who voted for Trump, and he still remains a force to be reckoned with.
And the rest of the GOP ticket did pretty well, Georgia being the massive exception. The House of Representatives grew tighter, as many of the marginal Democrats who won close elections in 2018 were ousted. And while Democrats did “pull the upset” and capture the Senate, many prognosticators, including me, thought it would be a seven or eight seat margin. Instead it is a fifty-fifty tie, with Vice President Harris determining the Democrats have control.
Aging Mitch McConnell is willing to hang on for a couple of more years, to see if he can regain control of the Senate. And California Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy sees himself as the next Speaker of the House of Representatives, if he can only find a way to turn six more seats from Blue to Red.
So while the Democrats are “in the saddle” in the White House, the Senate, and the House, it’s really all a very near thing.
Signal Flare
Yesterday the Republicans in the House of Representatives met to decide the fate of two of their colleagues. Their decision is a signal flare in the sky, telling us what forces are “in charge” of the Party today.
Liz Cheney is the Congresswoman from Wyoming. She is third in the leadership structure of the House Republicans, Chairman of the Caucus. And, of course, she is the daughter of one of the stalwarts of the old Republican guard, former Vice President Dick Cheney. How important is she to her father? When her gay younger sister Mary, legally married her partner, Liz took a stand against gay marriage. The Vice President supported Liz against his younger daughter.
But Liz Cheney has also committed her own “unforgiveable” sin. After the insurrection of January 6th, when the House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in instigating the action, Liz Cheney, third in power in the GOP, was one of ten Republican members who voted to impeach the President. She made it clear that she held Trump responsible for the insurrection, and indirectly, the deaths that occurred. For this act she has been censured by several County Republican Party organizations in Wyoming.
Turning Right
There is a movement to remove Cheney from her leadership position in the Republican Caucus. She held onto her position yesterday, but twenty-five percent of the Republicans wanted her thrown out.
And then there’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, the newly elected Congressman from Georgia. She is an avowed QAnon supporter. During her rising political career she has supported multiple “conspiracies”. She believes the Trump “voter fraud stolen election” story. But more than that, she believes the 9-11 conspiracy that a plane did not fly into the Pentagon building, that a space-based Jewish laser gun set fire to California forests to clear the way for the high-speed rail line, and that the Sandy Hook and Parkland school massacres were staged by “crisis actors”. Oh, and that Hillary and Bill Clinton somehow caused John Kennedy Jr to crash his airplane and die. She has called for the murder of Nancy Pelosi and assaults on other Democratic members.
The people of Georgia still elected her to the Congress, and the Republican Campaign Committee did little to stand in her way. And when she arrived in the House, the Party has allowed her to continue her conspiratorial rants, and even to circumvent House security measures. There are still concerns about what actions she took on January 6th.
But the Republican caucus yesterday stood by their committee appointments, including sending her to the Education Committee. This, the woman who thinks that the murder the little children of Sandy Hook and teenagers at Parkland was faked. She even went so far as to film herself harassing an eighteen-year-old Parkland survivor David Hogg, demanding to know who was financing him.
The Right Thing
Democrats are demanding that Greene be removed from all her committees. If the Republicans don’t do it, then the Democrats may use their majority to take the unprecedented step of doing it themselves. While it would take a two-thirds vote of the whole House of Representatives to remove her from the chamber, they can strip her committees with just a majority vote. Greene, of course, warns that when Republicans regain the majority in 2022, they may do the same to some of the more outspoken Democratic members – Ilhan Omar a primary target. It’s an apple to bananas comparison, but there it is. That’s the road the freshman Congressman from Georgia wants her Party to take.
Yesterday the Republicans could have avoided this by doing what is obviously the right thing to do: removing her from the committees themselves. They did the same thing only a couple of years ago, when Iowa Representative Steve King was “just” outspokenly racist.
The Road Taken
So the Republican choice was clear. They bet that their support depends on far-right conspiracists like those who invaded the Capitol and support Greene. They bet that Trump will still dominate the political landscape is 2022. And they rewarded Greene with her committee assignments. They did all of those things, but tried to “cover their bets” by not punishing Cheney for her vote. Maybe they think, Democrats will do the “right” thing anyway, so why should Republicans take the political heat?
The answer is pretty simple. Republicans chose what direction they will go. They continue to be the party of Trump: the party of conspiracy, fake news and the big lie. They chose to be that Republican Party, not the one who claims to wants lower taxes, less regulation, and smaller government; the Party of George Bush and Dick Cheney.
The road forked with the end of the Trump Administration. We now get to see where the GOP will go. And it’s continues down the road of Trumpism.
