- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene received a standing ovation for her radical beliefs.
- Republicans have been approaching the most radical elements in the country.
- In the next two years, rational Republicans will begin to lose to marginal Republicans as the party moves to the right.
- Michael Gordon is a former Democratic strategist, a former Justice Department spokesman and director of strategic communications firm Group Gordon.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
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We are watching the GOP implode before our eyes. Republican Party members continue to find new and creative ways to stick to the alternative right, hints of Q and deny essential truths like 9/11. The more they go crazy, the more ground they will lose in each city.
Fork in the road
House Republicans had a moment of clarity earlier this month when weighing the fates of MPs Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney.
Congressman Greene – who said that school shootings in Parkland and Sandy Hook were staged, that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim, that California forest fires were started by space lasers – was given a standing ovation by a sizeable group of Republican colleagues in a conference meeting after all this came up. Let’s be clear: they applauded an open colleague involved in conspiracy, racism and anti-Semitism.
Go back to the comments of former MP Steve King in 2019 – a milestone for a long history of offensive comments throughout his career – embracing white supremacy and white nationalism. Both parties, including the entire Republican Party, condemned his words, publicly rebuked him and deprived him of the committee’s duties.
But the patterns have changed. Rep. Greene was able to get away with much more than what Rep. King was scolded just two years ago.
In contrast, Rep. Cheney was criticized by several colleagues for his vote of conscience for impeaching the former president. Donald Trump. She was censored by the Wyoming Republican Party, and Rep. Matt Gaetz is campaigning against her.
I disagree with almost everything Liz Cheney believes, but she impeached the former president because she thought it was the right thing to do. Because her life and the lives of her colleagues were in danger because of her actions. And she was ridiculed across the spectrum on the right for that.
Cheney managed to maintain his position at the head of the Republican Party and probably benefited from the fact that it was a secret ballot. She might not have been so lucky if it was a public vote, because her Republican colleagues feel the need to attack Trump and his most fanatical supporters.
From the big old to the new crazy party
Of course, Greene’s episode is just the latest in a series of Republican efforts to accommodate the country’s most radical elements. We have seen this before, when the GOP embraced other candidates on the sidelines, when they spread the coronavirus conspiracy theories and when they falsely characterized the Black Lives Matter movement to fuel fear.
And that is how it will play out in the next two years – and possibly after. The marginal Republicans will challenge the moderate or even deeply conservative Republicans who put the country above the party. So Cheney and other conscientious Republicans like Congressman Adam Kinzinger will have to cover his right flank to keep his seat in Congress.
Some of the rational Republicans will lose to the insane. We saw this during the Trump era. Republicans like Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Mike Coffman, Barbara Comstock and Mia Love lost or retired after speaking out against Trump and the extremists he empowered – and this has caused fear in almost all Republicans to follow Trump’s line.
Some of the rational Republicans, for the good of the country, will win with hope. But when they lose, there will be another by-product: Democratic gains.
Democrats won the House in 2018 and the White House in 2020, in part for dismissing the decisive vote in the suburbs. If Republicans start running a series of extravagant candidates in the general election, Democrats will choose all the undecided states and purple districts in which they are competing. As the Republican Party leans more to the right, the Democratic Party will occupy more of the middle and gain ground as a result.
For many years, we have hoped that the Republicans elected in Washington will show some courage when it comes to the cult of Trump. This did not happen when Trump said there were very good people on both sides in Charlottesville. This did not happen when Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate a political rival. And that didn’t happen when Trump incited a riot that killed several people.
Perhaps the only thing that makes sense among official Republicans is to lose the elections. After all, they are politicians. But until they find that out, it will be great news for Democrats.