WASHINGTON – Divided by internal strife over the future of their leadership in Congress and their bases, Republicans are divided over how aggressively to tackle the rise of far-right extremism and the influence of former President Donald Trump in their ranks.
Two conflicting controversies are pushing Republicans into separate camps and forcing their leaders to choose sides, with great risks for the party’s future.
“It is not a member. It is about what we stand for and whether we want to be a serious party going forward,” said Republican consultant Brendan Buck, a former aide to the party’s last two speakers in the House.
A controversy revolves around Dep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, who faces growing criticism for having raised calls for violence against Democrats on social media and for defending grotesque theories that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and shootings en masse at a high school in Florida in 2018 were staged.
The other focuses on Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the House’s third Republican, who punished Trump and voted for his impeachment last month.
On parallel tracks, calls for Greene’s ouster and Cheney’s departure from leadership have intensified in recent days and peaked during a Republican House Conference meeting on Wednesday night.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Told members that he did not plan to remove Greene from his committees. The caucus then voted 145-61 in a secret ballot to keep Cheney in the lead, an unbalanced vote that suggests some private disenchantment with Trump in the caucus.
The confrontation over Greene, who has raised money for the controversy and refused to apologize publicly, put McCarthy in a difficult position. And it is unlikely to disappear, as the Democratic-led House plans to vote on Thursday on a resolution to remove Greene from the Education and Labor Committee and the Budget Committee.
It’s not just Democrats who say Greene is a problem.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Issued an unusual statement on Monday condemning Greene for defending “crazy lies and conspiracy theories” that he said were “cancer for the Republican Party and our country” . At the same time, McConnell praised Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, as a strong party leader.
A former Republican leadership adviser said McConnell’s comment was “instructive to McCarthy” in terms of taking a clear stand.
“Rather than, [McCarthy is] let House Republicans bleed now every day so it continues, “said the former leadership aide on condition of anonymity to avoid angering McCarthy.
The way McCarthy is handling the issue is being closely watched in every corner of the party and will set a precedent for radical figures who may be running for public office – and will weigh on voters who are undecided about supporting Republican candidates again. .
“The GOP House Party seems to be only concerned with what is good for winning a primary, and McConnell is trying to win back the majority,” Buck said. “We cannot win back college-educated suburban voters without making it clear that this is not a party of conspiracy theorists and crazy people.”
Greene claims to have Trump’s support. She became the face of the party’s so-called QAnon faction, which includes a group of her supporters who promote online conspiracy theories that Trump has faced a conspiracy of Democrats and celebrities who have been involved in child sex trafficking.
She said on Wednesday that she is being victimized because of her identity as white, Christian and conservative, among other things.
Dan Eberhart, a major Republican donor, said: “Republican leaders follow their voters, not the other way around, and the base does not yet exist to throw Trump into the sea. The Republican Party is no longer run by elites in Washington. It is run by activists. at the state level, and they’re not listening to Washington. They’re listening to people like Mr Greene. “
McConnell told reporters on Tuesday that he wants to create distance between Greene and the rest of the party.
“I spoke yesterday about that new member of the House in particular. And I think I spoke adequately about how I feel about any effort to define the Republican Party in this way,” he said. “I think it covers my opinion on this very well.”
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McConnell associates say he saw marginal figures (like Christine O’Donnell and Todd Akin) winning the Republican primaries in the Senate in 2010 and 2012 and costing the party seats that could be won by losing in the general election. He doesn’t want to allow it again.
In recent years, McConnell has also warned of the party’s weakness in the suburbs, and associates say he considers it harmful if the party is seen as connected to QAnon.
A Morning Consult / Politico poll released Wednesday found that Greene is becoming a household name, with 46 percent of registered voters saying they have opinions about her – an increase of 21 points since August. And Democrats are increasingly working to paint the entire Republican Party with its kind of radicalism.
“Republicans have a choice: will they stay with QAnon and a member among them who advocates violence and extremism, or will they embrace truth, honesty, integrity and responsibility?” Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., Said Wednesday on MSNBC. “The ball is in your court. And, unfortunately, the Casa will have to act if they don’t.”
Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, the party’s presidential candidate in 2012, said the Republican Party “is not big enough to have conservatives and nuts.” He said the party “should have nothing to do with Marjorie Taylor Greene” and that “it should repudiate the things she said and walk away from it”.
But others who have courted voters on the far right are acting more cautiously, including Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., who said she wanted her to explain herself.
“Are these posts accurate? I want to hear from her. Before I judge what to do with her, I want to know what the facts are. If these posts are not accurate, they have been manipulated, I would like to know that,” Graham told reporters on Tuesday.
When told that she was in the video making some of the statements, Graham said, “She will have to tell me: is it necessary? I don’t know. I haven’t seen the video, which is correct, what is not.”