“This is the beginning of the divorce,” the former GOP representative. Carlos Curbelo
Carlos Luis CurbeloHouse Hispanic Republicans welcome four new members House adjusts format for dinner with new members after criticism Former Republican Congressman asks Biden to receive presidential briefings MORE he told The Hill on Friday, when the upheavals of insurrectional violence two days earlier reverberated across the country.
Curbelo, which represented the 26th district of Florida from 2015 to 2019, predicted a final and permanent division between President Trump
Donald Trump Kim said that North Korean efforts will focus on bringing the US to its knees Pelosi urges Democrats to prepare to return to DC this week amid impeachment accusations Ken Klippenstein: ‘Ideological’ blind spot prevented police from respond urgently to the riots at Capitol MORE and the Republican Party.
His assessment took another step towards reality a few hours later, when Sen. Lisa Murkowski
Lisa Ann MurkowskiTrump faces new threat of impeachment Republican Senator: Trump ‘committed impugnable offenses’ Murkowski says he’s not thinking about joining the Democratic caucus MORE (Alaska) became the first Republican senator to call for Trump’s resignation, although his White House term was only 13 days away.
“I want him out. He’s done enough damage already, ”Murkowski told Anchorage Daily News.
Murkowski also reflected publicly on his future within the GOP.
“If the Republican Party has become nothing more than Trump’s party, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me,” she said.
On Sunday, Sen. Pat Toomey
Patrick (Pat) Joseph ToomeyThe government used the Patriot Act to collect records of website visitors in 2019 The appeals court ruled that the mass collection of telephone data from the NSA is illegal. Dunford withdraws from consideration to chair the coronavirus supervisory panel MORE (R-Pa.) Murkowski’s call echoed, telling CNN that Trump’s resignation would be “the best way forward”.
The Republican Party and the nation at large are struggling with related issues.
The GOP is reflecting on how it should be and represent in a post-Trump era. For the nation, there is doubt as to whether the boil of extreme militancy was speared or whether last week’s violence was a threatening omen.
“At the level of American party politics, I think this is a turning point, a watershed – and the beginning of Donald Trump’s demise as an important figure within the political system,” said Larry Diamond, senior member of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, which has written extensively on threats to democracy.
However, Diamond also warned that when it comes to the danger of far-right extremists willing to engage in violence, “the boil has not even started to be hurt and the poison is still growing.”
The riot that convulsed the Capitol on Wednesday, perpetrated by a crowd that had been instigated by the president, reverberated around the world. Two people, a rowdy and a police officer, died violently, and three others died from other causes not directly related to the chaos.
The disgust that followed was widespread. Some former Trump allies have abandoned him. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
Betsy DeVosSunday previews: Riots rock Washington as calls for Trump removal grow and Secretary of Transport Elaine Chao
Elaine ChaoSunday shows the preview: Riots stir Washington as demands for Trump’s removal grow. both resigned, as did the special envoy to Northern Ireland Mick Mulvaney
Mick MulvaneySunday shows the preview: Riots stir Washington as requests for Trump’s removal increase George Clooney: Trump’s name will be ‘forever associated with the insurrection’ Trump’s resignations gaining momentum MORE, a former White House chief of staff.
Trump’s trusted allies, like Sen. Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Olin GrahamCelebrities, Trump supporters react to banning the president’s Twitter account Legislators and leaders offer condolences after the death of harassed Capitol policeman at the airport after opposing Electoral College challenges MORE (RS.C.) also split up, and those who had supported the effort to overturn the outcome of the 2020 elections, notably Sens. Josh Hawley
Joshua (Josh) David HawleySherrod Brown asks Hawley, Cruz to resign from the Senate. Can Americans learn from Trump’s catastrophe? Houston Chronicle asks Cruz to step down MORE (R-Mo.) E Ted Cruz
Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzSherrod Brown asks Hawley, Cruz to step down from the Senate Can Americans learn from Trump’s catastrophe? Pompeo, Cruz and other Trump allies condemn President MORE’s Twitter ban (R-Texas), was criticized.
On Friday night, Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s account, citing “the risk of further incitement to violence”.
Wednesday’s events will tarnish Trump’s reputation for the rest of his days. But 74 million people voted for him in November. His support has withstood countless furores, from Charlottesville to impeachment, until now. On Saturday and Sunday, several Republican congressmen expressed opposition to the idea of impeachment against him.
“The party is in a mess,” said Judd Gregg, a Republican who was governor of New Hampshire and a US senator. “The president has created a cult around himself, and it is a very significant percentage of the population, millions of people, who remain committed to him and believe in his fantasies.”
Gregg said there was no doubt that Trump was politically damaged. But the damage would likely represent an erosion of his support, rather than its elimination, he said.
“It reduces their constituency dramatically, but I think they are still there and will still be active.”
Referring to the Republican Party senators who supported Trump’s baseless objections to the election result, Gregg said: “They dishonored themselves – but some of them will obviously run for president” in 2024.
A former Republican congressman said that “Trump’s legacy is forever damaged.” The former member added that, within the GOP, “the fight is about to begin. The great reckoning that many of us expected has already arrived. It is sad that it happened under these circumstances.”
“I really think there is a possibility that Trumpism as a political force is largely a depleted force,” said Allan Lichtman, professor of history at American University. “This does not mean that in the broader social arena it is an exhausted force. But this angry minority may not be able to elect many civil servants. “
Still, even Lichtman acknowledged that the support Trump received at the polls just two months ago will not simply evaporate.
A new PBS-Marist poll released on Friday found that Republican voters were equally divided over whether the events that took place on Capitol Hill involved people participating in “legitimate protest” or “acting illegally”.
Trump’s support also has deep roots. Even some on the left argue that it is important to focus not only on him, but on the conditions that facilitated his rise in the first place.
“This is not Trump out there alone with some little comrades who make up a lunatic fringe. No no no! “Said Cornel West, the prominent scholar who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders
Bernie SandersTrump faces new impeachment threat Sanders defends push for Trump impeachment: insurrection will not be tolerated Biden presents nominees for Commerce, Labor, Small Business Administration MORE (I-Vt.) In his 2020 presidential campaign.
West argued that the media tended to view Trump in a very simplistic way, masking – as he does – the failure of centrist Democrats to solve the problems that afflict many poorer Americans and provided the president with fertile political soil.
“The media wants to use Manichean lenses – the good on one side, the evil on the other,” said West. “The catastrophes of the American empire are about greed, especially at the top, destroying families; people who crave some sense of community that they cannot find; and the legacies of white supremacy that people often cling to when they feel they are sinking. “
West, however stern a critic of Trump, laughed wryly when asked if he had been surprised by the January 6 insurrectional violence.
“I am never surprised by evil or paralyzed by despair,” he said. “Violence is as American as an apple pie, just as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is as American as an apple pie – one is the worst and the other is the best.”
This may be true with regard to the broad scope of the story.
But for now, at least among the more centrist Republicans like Curbelo, there is a belief that the furious populist tide is at least beginning to subside.
“The support of his movement will finally be reduced to a small, but not insignificant – and very passionate – base,” he said. “This base must remain relevant in the Republican Party. However, it is unlikely that the base will continue to be the mainstream. “
The Memo is a column reported by Niall Stanage