Category Archives: Republican

The unbreakable wall of Republican support that encouraged and enabled Donald Trumps norm-shattering presidency cracked on Wednesday.

A group of 10 House Republicans joined Democrats to impeach Trump for inciting a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol last week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hasnt ruled out convicting Trump during a trial later this month, giving fellow Republicans cover if they chose that option.

The vast majority of House Republicans stood by Trump during the impeachment vote. But in a sign of the presidents weakening grip on the party, even some of those who opposed impeachment condemned Trumps behavior and blamed him for sparking the insurrection.

The president bears responsibility for Wednesdays attack on Congress by mob rioters, said House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who has been a staunch Trump ally.

Its a dramatic turn of events for a president who has enjoyed virtually unyielding loyalty from his party and was expected to play a key role in shaping the GOPs future. But the impeachment vote demonstrated how challenging the coming months may be for Republicans.

While some are clearly eager to move into a post-Trump era, theres still a large block that will stand with him even after he fueled a riot. Many House Republicans downplayed the significance of the insurrection and Trumps role, drawing false comparisons between the deadly storming of the Capitol by a largely white mob and isolated incidents of looting and violence related to civil rights protests last summer.

The left in America has incited far more violence than the right, said Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who was among the 197 who opposed impeachment.

Still, the stunning nature of the mob violence shook many lawmakers. Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, gave rank-and-file conservatives the green light to abandon Trump in a scathing statement on the eve of the vote.

There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution, she said.

More ominously for Trump, McConnell believes Trump committed impeachable offenses and considers Democrats impeachment drive an opportunity to reduce the divisive, chaotic presidents hold on the GOP, a Republican strategist told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

In a note to his fellow Republican senators on Wednesday, McConnell confirmed that he had not ruled out voting to convict him in the upcoming Senate trial, which will spill into Bidens presidency.

While the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate, McConnell said.

McConnell also called major Republican donors this weekend to gauge their thinking about Trump and was adamantly told that Trump had clearly crossed a line. McConnell told them he was through with Trump, said the strategist, who demanded anonymity to describe McConnells conversations. The New York Times first reported McConnells views on impeachment on Tuesday.

A growing collection of corporations, many of them reliably Republican donors, have promised to stop sending political donations to any of the 147 Republicans who perpetuated Trumps false claims of election fraud by voting to reject Bidens victory last week.

The presidents remaining allies warn that Republicans who cross him publicly risk a conservative backlash in their next elections.

Public and private polling shows Republican grassroots voters strongly oppose impeachment, said Jason Miller, a Trump senior adviser. Any Republican senator or congressman voting for impeachment will be held accountable in their next primary election.

Its unclear whether the chaos in Washington represents an existential threat to the party, but it almost certainly threatens to undermine the GOPs short-term political goals. History suggests that Republicans, as the minority party in Washington, should regain control of the House or Senate in 2022.

Trump made no public appearances on Wednesday. But since last weeks deadly attack, he has publicly and privately denied any responsibility for the insurrection.

During a brief trip to the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday, he offered those who support impeachment an ominous warning: Be careful what you wish for.

Shortly before the Houses final vote, he issued a written statement calling on his supporters not to engage in any more violence in the rounds of new protests planned for the coming days.

I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers, Trump wrote.

At the same time, a collection of ambitious Republicans are trying to position themselves to run for the White House in 2024. They are also contending with Trumps legacy.

One of them, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, reminded reporters on Tuesday that hes condemned the Trump presidency from the very beginning.

Ive been in the same place Ive been for the whole four years. A lot of people have just changed their position, Hogan said, while vowing not to leave the GOP. I dont want to leave the party and let these people who did a hostile takeover four years ago take over.

Despite Hogans confidence, he is far less popular among Trumps loyal base a group likely to hold great sway in the selection of the partys next presidential nominee than the likes of Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, two other 2024 prospects who voted to reject Bidens victory last week, even after the uprising.

Republican leaders do not know how to move forward, Republican pollster Frank Luntz said. Everybodys afraid that Donald Trump will tell people to come after them, but they also realize theyre losing the center of America. Theyre trapped.

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Alamo, Texas, and Alan Fram and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

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Trump's wall of GOP support breaks during impeachment vote - The Associated Press

Theres a long list of Republicans who ought not part their lips this holiday weekend to praise Martin Luther King Jr., to quote from his most famous speech or suggest in any way that they know anything about content of character.

That list includes the 138 Republicans in the U.S. House and the six Republicans in the U.S. Senate who voted to overturn the results of a free and fair election after a mob demanding that they overturn the electionstormed the U.S. Capitol. The list also includes everybody who at any point after the election was called for Joe Biden suggested President Donald Trumps defeat warranted investigation.

No tweets, no videos, no press releases. Not one word about how much King inspired you. Act like youve never heard of him or like you think of him with scorn.

In other words, do what you do when youre craning for an affectionate pat on the head from Trump. Do what you do when youre courting Trumps Lock Her Up / Build the Wall / Send Her Back / Lock Him Up / Fire Fauci / Stop the Steal fanatics. Your posture toward Trump and his devotees reveals more of what you think about King and his work than a saccharine tweet about Kings greatness ever could.

Let us march on ballot boxesuntil race-baiters disappear from the political arena, King said in 1965 at the end of a long march from Selma to Montgomery. Let us march on ballot boxes until we send to our city councils, state legislatures, and the United States Congress, men who will not fear to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.

There was a massive march to the polls Nov. 3 in the election that Biden won. Never before had more than 140,000,000 Americans voted, and in this election,159,633,396did. Georgians marched again on Jan. 5 when they elected two Democrats a Black man and a Jewish man to represent them in the U.S. Senate.

There was also a massive backlash: Trump claiming that hed been robbed (specifically by election officials in majority Black jurisdictions), Republican lawmakers endorsing the lie, Republican-controlled legislatures proposing more limited access to absentee ballots, a mob of bloodthirsty, murderous pro-Trump extremists forcing their way into the Capitol aiming to make Congress do its bidding.

Did our Republican lawmakers overcome their fear of Trump, their fear of Trumps fanatics? Did they find the courage, the decency, to do justly? No. In various ways and at various times, they disrespected American voters, specifically those Americans who may never have been voters without the movement King led.

Retired Tulane University history professor Lawrence Powell told the Illuminator last week that just like the murderous response to Black people getting elected during Reconstruction, last weeks ransacking of the U.S. Capitol followed the promiscuous assumption that Black electoral politics are by definition riddled by fraud and illegal chicanery.

So let us not hear any Let freedom ring platitudes from those who cast suspicion on Black people exercising the franchise.

As ridiculously offensive as it would be for the Republicans whove been standing with Trump to suggest that they would have stood (and still do stand) with King, its no more ridiculous than Trump adviser Stephen Moore telling Wisconsinites upset with COVID-19 restrictions that We need to be the Rosa Parks hereand protest against these government injustices.

Even more than Parks, King has become soft clay in the hands of White conservatives who continue trying to shape him into an anodyne speechmaker sent to forgive White people of racism, join hands with them and sing.

Those conservatives have not only tried to make King colorblind, theyve tried to make him raceless, something other than a Black man who pledged a Black fraternity at a Black college, married a Black woman, pastored Black churches, led marches of mostly Black people and urged the Black audience listening to his very last speech to take their money out of white banks and put it in Black banks and to reject their white insurance companies for Black ones.

None of that means white people and white institutions cant support his cause. It means those whove been holding up an anti-Black President and pushing anti-Black policies dont and should stop pretending that they do.

King expressed disdain for the white moderate who, he said, called a great stumbling block to his cause. What do we think hed make of the white conservative who wrongly labels Black votes fraudulent in support of the biggest fraud the White House has ever seen?

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Republican praise of Martin Luther King will sound even more hollow now - Georgia Recorder

I used to be a Republican. As a teenager, I wondered if Uncle Ken, the only Democrat in the family, was really a Christian.

When in college, I doorbelled for Richard Nixon. Later, I worked two years for a Republican U.S. senator in his Washington, D.C., office, observing bipartisanship first hand.

In the 1990s I attended Republican precinct caucuses and county and state conventions. I instinctively skewered anything a Democrat said; and just the sound of Sen. Harry Reids voice nauseated me.

But in 2007 I asked myself if I could be objective enough to see the holes in things Republicans said. It was easier than I expected, because the Republican Party was beginning to go crazy.

Then in 2016, Republicans made a pact with the devil by lining up behind Donald Trump; and now hell is demanding payment.

It is only a willful minority dominating the Republican Party. But their disregard for traditional Republican values and the constitution has trashed the party. It has become not just anti-Democrat, but anti-democracy.

Republicans have a chance to reboot their party. But it requires a courageous choice between the Party of Lincoln and the Party of Trump. You cant have both. I ask Republicans, what do you want your party to be and to stand for?

The GOP could be the net winner. No doubt some in the Trump base will no longer be energized to vote Republican. But the party can reclaim a larger number in the middle both independents and Republicans who have been voting for Democrats.

Republicans did as well as they did in Novembers U.S. Senate and House elections because a lot of people voted for traditional Republican values such as fiscal conservatism and good government even as they voted against Trump.

But Republicans ultimately lost the Senate because the subsequent Georgia run-offs became more narrowly focused on Trump.

It wont be as simple as repudiating Donald Trump, although that is an important first step. It will require standing up to continuing Trump threats. (Do you want Eric Trump calling the shots in your party?)

And it will take time. The degradation has been years in the making; the unmaking will also take years.

I can vote for the Party of Lincoln, but not the Party of Trump. I hope to see courage win over cowardice.

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Republicans have a chance to reboot their party - Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) said that while some GOP members of Congress "share responsibility" for misleading the supporters of President TrumpDonald TrumpFacebook temporarily bans ads for weapons accessories following Capitol riots Sasse, in fiery op-ed, says QAnon is destroying GOP Section 230 worked after the insurrection, but not before: How to regulate social media MORE who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week, othersfeared physical violence if they opposed objections to the 2020 election results.

"They were being lied to. They were being misled," he said of the demonstrators. "Some of my colleagues in Congress, they share responsibility for that. Many of them were fundraising off of this Stop the Steal grift."

But other Republicans, he argued in an interview with the libertarian magazine Reason, "had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families. They felt that that vote would put their families in danger."

Those lawmakers, he said, knew in their "heart of hearts that they should've voted to certify" but voted to support objections to the results of election results in Pennsylvania and Arizona due to fears that members of their families could face retaliation.

Meijer, who occupiesthe seat held by former Rep. Justin AmashJustin AmashRepublicans eye primaries in impeachment vote Michigan GOP lawmaker says he's 'strongly considering' impeachment Newly sworn in Republican House member after Capitol riot: 'I regret not bringing my gun to D.C.' MORE (I-Mich.), who left the Republican Party after voting for the president's impeachment,went on to say that Trump's"unwillingness to come to grips with reality"continued to perpetuate the problem and made him "rankly unfit" for office.

Lawmakers have excoriated the president for his remarks praising the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday while seeking answers as to why a violent mob was able to overwhelm Capitol Police and vandalize the building.

Numerous Democrats, including the party's congressional leadership, have called for the president to resign or be removed from office, while some Republicans in both chambers have joined the calls as well.

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GOP representative: Some Republicans voted to challenge election results due to safety concerns | TheHill - The Hill

To the chairman of the Republican Party of Los Alamos:

I am very glad to hear that you condemn the violence that occurred at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6. If this viewpoint is consistent throughout the Republican Party, then our country will be OK. We will get through this, as long as cooler heads prevail.

However, I would like to respond to your arguments in the context of the current state of affairs in the United States of America.

People on all sides are very concerned. People are scared that their democracy is on the verge of failing, either by disenfranchising its own citizens, or by open, armed revolt against congress. There was a deadly attack on the most central institution of our democracy. People call it insurrection. People call it a coup attempt. These are words that have preceded the collapse of many governments of the past. So, this is a time to pick your words and your priorities carefully when speaking publicly. I am absolutely sure that you and I agree that we do not want our democracy to fail, so please lend me your attention for a moment.

In your statement to the people of Los Alamos on Jan. 12 (https://losalamosreporter.com/2021/01/12/republican-party-of-los-alamos-comments-on-events-in-washington-dc-january-6/), you list many frightening things that people have said under oath and in signed affidavits. I will agree that these things, if true, would be more than disturbing, and are worthy of investigation to an appropriate degree. Unfortunately, I am not qualified to decide if these claims are true and these crimes took place. I cannot listen to all the hearings in all the contested states.

Fortunately, our democracy has an entire branch of government that is dedicated to making fully informed and legal decisions about whether or not a crime has taken place: the judicial branch. The sitting president and his allies have filed more than 60 lawsuits in state and federal courts in an attempt to prove that the criminal behavior that you describe actually did take place. These very well-funded lawsuits and the lawyers behind them have failed to convince the judicial branch that widespread fraud and election tampering took place.

In view of this reality, I have to wonder why you are bringing up these allegations of serious crimes once again. These concerns have been brought to our courts, and the courts have found that they are without merit.

So, I ask you this: Are you bringing into question the integrity of the judicial branch, from the state level all the way up to the Supreme Court?

Do you believe that our courts are so corrupt and subject to outside influence that we should no longer listen to them? Do you feel that the people who made allegations of widespread fraud under oath and in signed affidavits are more trustworthy than our entire judicial branch? If this is the case, then it would seem that you believe that one branch of our government has already failed.

You need to understand that this is a dangerous assertion.You need to understand the gravity of such a belief being publicly stated or inferred by a political leader such as yourself. People go to war over such things.Is towing the party line for an outgoing President worth eroding the public trust in our national election process and the entire judicial branch?

I still have faith in the basic integrity of our judicial branch. If you do as well, please do not qualify your condemnation of the attempted coup on Jan. 6 by saying that there were good reasons for attempting it. The people of the United States of America need to hear clear, unqualified condemnation of the attempted coup by leaders such as yourself.

Thank you for your time.

Eric Schaller

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Open Letter To The Chairman Of The Republican Party Of Los Alamos - Los Alamos Reporter

In their statement, the Republicans cited poll results showing most members of their party believe the election was rigged, an assertion that Mr. Trump has made for months, and which has been repeated in the right-wing news media and by many Republican members of Congress.

A fair and credible audit conducted expeditiously and completed well before Jan. 20 would dramatically improve Americans faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next president, they wrote. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it.

They also acknowledged that their effort was likely to be unsuccessful, given that any such challenge must be sustained by both the House, where Democrats hold the majority, and the Senate, where top Republicans including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, have tried to shut it down.

We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise, the senators wrote.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee with jurisdiction over federal elections, called the Republican effort a publicity stunt that would ultimately fail, but said it was dangerous nevertheless, amounting to an attempt to subvert the will of the voters. She noted in an interview that hundreds of millions of votes had already been counted, recounted, litigated and state-certified across the country.

These baseless claims have already been examined and dismissed by Trumps own attorney general, dozens of courts and election officials from both parties, said Mike Gwin, a spokesman for Mr. Bidens campaign.

While lawmakers have sought to register their opposition to past presidential election results by challenging Congresss certification, the move has generally been more symbolic than substantive, given that the loser had already conceded and senators rarely joined with members of the House to force a vote. But as Mr. Trump continues to perpetuate the myth of widespread voter fraud, a growing number of Republicans in Congress have been eager to challenge the results, either out of devotion to the president or out of fear of enraging the base of their party that still reveres him even in defeat.

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Pence Welcomes Futile Bid by G.O.P. Lawmakers to Overturn Election - The New York Times

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas helped lead the Senate attempt to object to Joe Bidens victory. My view is Congress should fulfill our responsibility under the Constitution to consider serious claims of voter fraud, he said last Monday. Now, he too wants unity. The attack at the Capitol was a despicable act of terrorism and a shocking assault on our democratic system, he said in the aftermath of the violence, as calls to impeach the president grew louder and louder. We must come together and put this anger and division behind us.

Im reminded, here, of one particular passage from Abraham Lincolns 1860 address at Cooper Union in Manhattan, in which he criticized the political brinkmanship of Southern elites who blamed their Northern opponents for their own threats to break the union over slavery.

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!

There are a handful of Senate Republicans, like Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who are open to impeachment. But much of the Republican response is exactly this kind of threat: If you hold President Trump accountable for his actions, then we wont help you unify the country.

Or, as another Republican, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, said on Twitter,

Those calling for impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment in response to President Trumps rhetoric this week are themselves engaging in intemperate and inflammatory language and calling for action that is equally irresponsible and could well incite further violence.

These cries of divisiveness arent just the crocodile tears of bad-faith actors. They serve a purpose, which is to pre-emptively blame Democrats for the Republican partisan rancor that will follow after Joe Biden is inaugurated next week. It is another way of saying that they, meaning Democrats, shot first, so we, meaning Republicans, are absolved of any responsibility for our actions. If Democrats want some semblance of normalcy if they want to be able to govern then the price for Republicans is impunity for Trump.

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Opinion | Sure, Now Ted Cruz and Kevin McCarthy Want Unity - The New York Times

What the hell happened to the Republican Party?

Ive been asking myself this question since Donald Trump began his hostile takeover in 2015. After the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, theres a whole new urgency to the inquiry.

The GOP bears a ton of responsibility for what happened at the Capitol, not just because it has nurtured Trumps excesses for the last four years but also because it has helped spread objectively false claims about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Earlier this week, I spoke to authors Geoffrey Kabaservice and Daniel Ziblatt about the history of the Republican Party and why the radicalization were seeing today is different from that of previous eras. But I also wanted to talk to someone on the legislative side about what members of the party are thinking now and why they seem unable to pull back from the brink.

So I reached out to David Jolly, a former GOP congressman from Florida. Jolly left Congress in 2017 and, shortly thereafter, renounced his membership in the Republican Party. We spoke back in 2019 as Trumps first impeachment trial was about to begin, and at the time, Jolly told me that Republicans in Congress were tearing at the fabric of the Constitution every bit as much as Donald Trump and undermining the institution of Congress every bit as much as Trump.

But while hes grown estranged from his party, Jolly has kept up with his former colleagues nearly 150 of whom formally objected to the results of the 2020 election even after the raid on the Capitol. I wanted to pick up the thread with Jolly and get his thoughts on his former party, which appears to have gotten only more radical since we last spoke.

In this conversation, the following transcript of which has been lightly edited for length and clarity, we discuss how the GOP reached this precipice, why so many Republicans still refuse to do what they know they ought to do, and whether Jolly believes the party has to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up.

When we last spoke, we were on the verge of the first impeachment trial, and I think its fair to say that you were shocked by the shamelessness of so many of your fellow Republicans. Did you ever imagine that it would get this bad?

No. We certainly all hoped it wouldnt. We all hoped the division wouldnt break into violence. But I think we all feared it because there was evidence of it through the last four years. You take Charlottesville as an example. You take some of his rallies where candidate Trump or President Trump would suggest roughing up a protester or telling cops to maybe bang the heads of criminals as youre putting them in the car.

So, were we aware that this could happen? I think so. Were we hopeful it wouldnt? Certainly. Were we surprised that it finally did? Nope.

I think the more surprising thing is that Trump actually incited an insurrection and brought violence into the sanctuary of the House and Senate chamber and still, for the most part, maintained control of the GOP. That it took nearly a week to begin to see the slightest little fractures in support for the president from his GOP allies in the Senate and the House is surprising.

What do you think Republicans were telling themselves these last two months as Trump continued to lie about the election and they, for the most part, cynically indulged those lies? They had to see the dangers, right?

I dont know, because they havent faced any consequences for their actions these last four years. You could say we saw violence at the Michigan Capitol or that we saw unrest in the streets, but members [of] Congress are far removed from that. And so if the president of their party wanted to stoke this false information campaign, the Republican members I know were happy to just kind of smile and look the other way.

We essentially heard that narrative from members. People kept saying, Just let the president have his time to do his thing, and at the end of the day hell leave office peacefully. Well, they were wrong. And I think its telling that the members of Congress that are coming forward now to distance themselves from the president theyre all the members that actually knew better the last four years but didnt act.

And the ones that are defending him in this moment, I dont think they ever knew better. Theyre not just supporting the politics of the president this is their politics, too.

A question Ive been asking is whether these Republicans in Congress really believe what theyre saying, or whether theyre too cowardly or self-interested to do whats right because they fear the political consequences. If youre right, and youd know better than I would, its a bit of both.

Its interesting because I dont think even the Trump wing of the GOP is a monolithic body. And to your point, some of the members and I know this from personal conversations believe that the election was rigged. They really believe it. Now, is that because Trump said it, or Fox News echoed it, or their constituents in super-gerrymandered districts told them? These things definitely get amplified by right-wing media to the point where a lot of people fully absorb it.

So there are lots of these people who truly believe it, not because they saw anything with their own eyes but because theyve emerged as politicians in that type of echo chamber. But certainly there are others, and I would put Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley in this lane, that know the presidents claims are false. They know there is no evidence, and that a commission or a study would reveal nothing. And so they lean on the line that their constituents are concerned, and they owe it to their constituents to get answers.

You mentioned you still talk to some of your former colleagues who are in Congress and that some of them really believe this shit. Do you talk to others who tell you privately that they know its all nonsense but refuse to say so publicly?

Oh, yeah. I had a conversation just in the last 48 hours with a member who I thought would have voted to impeach the president. And when I asked him how he was going to vote, he almost scoffed. Hes a hard no on impeachment. I asked him if hes even given it a thought, he told me, No, Im already expecting a primary two years from now. Theres no way I can vote to impeach. Well, thats a member exercising purely political judgment.

I suppose there are defenders who would suggest that that is how political pressure is supposed to work from constituents to their elected representatives. But I think theres merit in Mitt Romneys view, which he articulated on the Senate floor, that its beyond time for our elected officials to tell the voters the truth.

I should say that there are reports today [January 13] that several Republicans in Congress want to vote for impeachment but literally fear for their lives if they do. What would you say to them if you were still in Congress? What are you saying to them now?

You know, Sean, the first thing Id say is that I understand. We currently have a restraining order against an individual who threatened my life. I tell you now because its a matter of public record. I was threatened for continuing to speak out against Trump. All I can tell you is that he expressed a clear interest in causing harm to me and my family. And for the last three years, weve lived knowing this individual is within miles of our home and that hes now wearing an ankle bracelet. Its on our mind every single day.

So, what would I say to members of Congress? Id say this is part of what we signed up for. And I dont mean we signed up for threats of violence. But in being willing to serve, you also have accepted the public role that comes with making hard decisions as to where our nation should be going and what constitutional values we are going to try to affirm in our role as elected officials. I dont think you can let the threat of violence influence a vote in this matter. And if you do, I suppose youre answering to the wrong conviction.

Youre still out there; youre still very public in your criticisms of the GOP. Are you still dealing with constant threats?

Its a daily thing. And its fine if you want to put this in the transcript, but just this morning actually, my wife and I, were moving into a new home and we have a new baby coming, and two cars pulled up and slowed down, likely just to look at who the new people in the neighborhood are. But my wife and I immediately looked with scrutiny at who it might be and whether or not we need to immediately prepare for our safety.

This is the political environment were in now, and its been fueled by the mere words of political leaders. But I want to say that I dont think we should have much sympathy for people in Congress, because whats come under attack, whats being threatened, isnt just the physical safety of elected officials but the nation itself. Were all living through this division together.

So rather than focusing on whether elected officials deserve our empathy in this moment, we should focus on the expectations that we deservedly put on them. And for some, that means you are a part of the last four years that enabled us to get to this moment, by empowering Donald Trump and by looking the other way as he continued to escalate towards what we saw last Wednesday.

I dont want to imply that Republicans arent responsible for doing the right thing, whatever the risks. But I do think its important to say that Republicans occupy an incentive structure in which doing the right thing basically means committing professional suicide.

Ill put it even more bluntly: The Republican Party is being held hostage by a violent cult, and that cult presents a massive demand-side problem for the GOP moving forward. According to one poll, 45 percent of Republicans agree with the assault on the Capitol. Thats totally fucking nuts, David, and I dont think anyone knows what to do about it.

Look, there is a violent political movement that has found safe harbor in the Republican Party. That is not to say the Republican Party writ large is a violent political movement. But the violence we saw in the name of politics emerged through Trumps GOP. And as swiftly as I criticize the president, I am measured and careful not to unnecessarily take a cheap shot.

The actions we saw last Wednesday have always been somewhere within our political culture, but we havent seen the level of violence. So what changed? What changed is an individual who emerged through the Republican Party, who was elevated by the Republican Party, who was embraced and celebrated. And even among his critics and detractors from within the party, they chose to enable him at every step.

Thats whats different in todays Republican Party. The leadership of one man, who has given a permission structure to a violent political movement to participate in what is otherwise the mainstream political activities of one of the two major parties in the country. And even though were seeing some signs of resistance, from people like Mitch McConnell and Liz Cheney, theyre not going to push Trump out of the party. Its not going to happen.

Youre probably right, but where does that leave the party?

The reality is that the GOP coalition has no shot at a majority if they lose either the establishment or the Trumpian populists. And so if theyre going to have this war, its going to put the GOP in the wilderness for a long time, and they each know it. And thats why its intriguing to watch what McConnell does. Its intriguing to watch the hypocritical gymnastics of Kevin McCarthy. Because they all know if they let this thing break wide open, theyre a minority party for probably a decade.

Is it possible maybe not likely, but possible that this moment will be some kind of tipping point for the party?

It may be a tipping point, and maybe the party breaks apart. But I dont think its a tipping point if by that you mean the party breaks away from Trump. Maybe this is some kind of shatter the glass moment, but theres no rebuilding strategy. Theres no post-Trump plan. And they all know it.

As we talk now, it looks like only six Republicans in Congress are supporting the impeachment resolution today [10 Republicans eventually voted yes]. Does that number surprise you at all?

No, it doesnt. I wish we saw something different. But it also doesnt surprise me who the six are. Its somewhat expected.

The story really is the number of Republicans who have stuck with the president. This was an incitement of an insurrection that led to the deaths of people and threatened the lives of members of Congress. And yet they dont see it, which goes back to my first point, which is that theyre underestimating the politics of the moment. Theyre underestimating the threat of this moment. And whether its out of ignorance or just a wishful thinking that this all goes away, I think Republicans are failing the nation and largely failing themselves in this moment.

If the party doesnt course-correct, if the cult of Trumpism survives the Trump presidency, does the GOP need to be destroyed from the ground up?

Look, thats been my case for a while because the entire class of elected Republicans are the ones that have enabled and celebrated Trump. I dont find them any more trustworthy than the principal himself.

I think what the future holds will depend largely on what Donald Trump does in the next few years. Does he try to keep control of the Republican Party? Because even if he fails, hell keep control of half of it. Or does Trump, in his own self-interest, find his fame and fortune in another endeavor outside of politics? The party will be stronger if Trump is gone.

Well see what route he takes. If Trump or his family tries to stay on top of the party, were in for a long road. I dont see how the GOP recovers from that. And yet, to put all this in context, even now were talking about a party that nearly won the presidency, still controls half the Senate, and has a chance of recapturing the House. So the party can still be a viable competitor to the Democrats.

But will we ever see the Republican Party of yesterday? I doubt it.

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Trump impeachment and the GOP existential crisis, explained by a Republican - Vox.com

An anti-tax group funded primarily by billionaires has emerged as one of the biggest backers of the Republican lawmakers who sought to overturn the US election results, according to an analysis by the Guardian.

The Club for Growth has supported the campaigns of 42 of the rightwing Republicans senators and members of the House of Representatives who voted last week to challenge US election results, doling out an estimated $20m to directly and indirectly support their campaigns in 2018 and 2020, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

About 30 of the Republican hardliners received more than $100,000 in indirect and direct support from the group.

The Club for Growths biggest beneficiaries include Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, the two Republican senators who led the effort to invalidate Joe Bidens electoral victory, and the newly elected far-right gun-rights activist Lauren Boebert, a QAnon conspiracy theorist. Boebert was criticised last week for tweeting about the House speaker Nancy Pelosis location during the attack on the Capitol, even after lawmakers were told not to do so by police.

Public records show the Club for Growths largest funders are the billionaire Richard Uihlein, the Republican co-founder of the Uline shipping supply company in Wisconsin, and Jeffrey Yass, the co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, an options trading group based in Philadelphia that also owns a sports betting company in Dublin.

While Uihlein and Yass have kept a lower profile than other billionaire donors such as Michael Bloomberg and the late Sheldon Adelson, their backing of the Club for Growth has helped to transform the organization from one traditionally known as an anti-regulatory and anti-tax pro-business pressure group to one that backs some of the most radical and anti-democratic Republican lawmakers in Congress.

Heres the thing about the hyper wealthy. They believe that their hyper-wealth grants them the ability to not be accountable. And that is not the case. If youve made billions of dollars, good on you. But that doesnt make you any less accountable for funding anti-democratic or authoritarian candidates and movements, said Reed Galen, a former Republican strategist who co-founded the Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump campaigners.

Galen said he believed groups such as the Club for Growth now served to cater to Republican donors own personal agenda, and not what used to be considered conservative principles.

The Lincoln Project has said it would devote resources to putting pressure not just on Hawley, which the group accused of committing sedition, but also on his donors.

The Club for Growth has so far escaped scrutiny for its role supporting the anti-democratic Republicans because it does not primarily make direct contributions to candidates. Instead, it uses its funds to make outside spending decisions, like attacking a candidates opponents.

In 2018, Club for Growth spent nearly $3m attacking the Democratic senator Claire McCaskill in Missouri, a race that was ultimately won by Hawley, the 41-year-old Yale law graduate with presidential ambitions who has amplified Donald Trumps baseless lies about election fraud.

That year, it also spent $1.2m to attack the Texas Democrat Beto ORourke, who challenged and then narrowly lost against Cruz.

Other legislators supported by Club for Growth include Matt Rosendale, who this week called for the resignation of fellow Republican Liz Cheney after she said she would support impeachment of the president, and Lance Gooden, who accused Pelosi of being just as responsible for last weeks riot as Trump.

Dozens of the Republicans supported by Club for Growth voted to challenge the election results even after insurrectionist stormed the Capitol, which led to five deaths, including the murder of a police officer.

The Club for Growth has changed markedly as the groups leadership has changed hands. The Republican senator Pat Toomey, who used to lead the group, has recently suggested he was open to considering voting for Trumps impeachment, and criticised colleagues for disputing election results. Its current head, David McIntosh, is a former Republican member of Congress who accompanied Trump on a final trip to Georgia last week, the night before Republican candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both heavily supported by the Club for Growth, lost runoff elections to their Democratic opponents.

Neither the Club for Growth nor McIntosh responded to requests for comment.

Public records show that Richard Uihlein, whose family founded Schlitz beer, donated $27m to the Club for Growth in 2020, and $6.7m in 2018. Uihlein and his wife, Liz, have been called the most powerful conservative couple youve never heard of by the New York Times. Richard Uihlein, the New York Times said, was known for underwriting firebrand anti-establishment candidates like Roy Moore, who Uihlein supported in a Senate race even after it was alleged he had sexually abused underage girls. Moore denied the allegations.

A spokesman for the Uihleins declined to comment.

Yass of Susquehanna International, who is listed on public documents as having donated $20.7m to the Club for Growth in 2020 and $3.8m in 2018, also declined to comment. Yass is one of six founders of Susquehanna, called a crucial engine of the $5tn global exchange-traded fund market in a 2018 Bloomberg News profile. The company was grounded on the basis of the six founders mutual love of poker and the notion that training for probability-based decisions could be useful in trading markets. Susquehannas Dublin-based company, Nellie Analytics, wages on sports.

In a 2020 conference on the business of sports betting, Yass said sports betting was a $250bn industry globally, but that with help from legislators, it could become a trillion-dollar industry.

A 2009 profile of Yass in Philadelphia magazine described how secrecy pervades Susquehanna, and that people who know the company say stealth is a word often used to describe its modus operandi. The article suggested Yass was largely silent about his company because he does not like to share what he does and how, and that those who know him believe he is very nervous about his own security.

Yass, who is described in some media accounts as a libertarian, also donated to the Protect America Pac, an organisation affiliated with Republican senator Rand Paul. The Pacs website falsely claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election.

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Billionaires backed Republicans who sought to reverse US election results - The Guardian

WASHINGTON As lawmakers entered the Capitol on Wednesday for one of the most solemn enterprises in American government, the impeachment of a president, Representative Lauren Boebert was causing a spectacle before even making it into the chamber. She pushed her way through newly installed metal detectors and ignored police officers who asked her to stop so they could check her with a hand-held wand.

This reprised a standoff from the evening before, when Ms. Boebert, a freshman Republican from Colorado, refused to show guards what was inside her handbag as she entered the building. In both cases, she was eventually granted access, but not before engineering a made-for-Twitter moment that delighted the far right.

After joining her colleagues on Wednesday, Ms. Boebert took to the House floor to denounce the vote on impeachment that passed a few hours later.

Wheres the accountability for the left after encouraging and normalizing violence? Ms. Boebert asked loudly, arguing that Democrats had tolerated excessive violence last summer during the unrest over racial justice. I call bullcrap when I hear the Democrats demanding unity.

The standoff at the metal detectors was a characteristic stunt by Ms. Boebert. She is only 10 days into her term but has already arranged several episodes that showcased her brand of far-right defiance as a conspiracy theorist who proudly boasts of carrying her Glock handgun to Washington. She is only one of 435 House members, but Ms. Boebert, 34, represents an incoming faction of the party for whom breaking the rules and gaining notoriety for doing it is exactly the point.

In the same way Republicans leaders had to adapt to the Tea Party over a decade ago, House leaders must now contend with a narrow but increasingly clamorous element of the party that not only carries Mr. Trumps anti-establishment message but connects with the voters who are so loyal to him and so crucial to future elections.

In the process, Ms. Boebert and her cohort have exasperated other lawmakers and Republicans.

There is a trend, in both parties, of members who seem more interested in dunking on folks on social media and appearing on friendly cable networks than doing the work of legislating, said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist and former press secretary for the former House Speaker John Boehner. They seem to see public service as more performance art than a battle of policy ideas.

In recent days, Ms. Boebert and a group of other freshman Republicans, including the QAnon devotee Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, a 25-year-old freshman who claimed he was armed during the Capitol riots, have questioned or outright flouted guidelines meant to protect lawmakers from violence, intruders or the spread of the coronavirus.

Their fluency in social media, access to conservative television and talk radio platforms and combativeness with reporters on live television allows them to gain notoriety in nontraditional ways.

There used to be a level of gatekeeping that went on with how members developed a profile when they got to Washington, said Kevin Madden, a strategist who served as a senior adviser to Mitt Romney during his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. Usually you had to work for it and earn that notoriety. Now its given to you with one YouTube video.

In an introductory video of sorts that she released last week, Ms. Boebert was shown walking against a Washington backdrop with a gun holstered at her waistline. I refuse to give up my rights, especially my Second Amendment rights, she said to the camera.

In her short time in office, Ms. Boebert has already sparred with a Republican colleague over security lapses at the Capitol last week and expressed interest in bringing her gun to work. Her Twitter account was temporarily suspended after she spread the falsehood that the presidential election was rigged.

She also faced criticism, and some demands that she resign, for tweeting out information about some lawmakers locations during the siege at the Capitol by a violent mob last week.

The behavior exhibited by Ms. Boebert and some of her fellow freshman Republicans prompted Timothy Blodgett, the Houses acting sergeant-at-arms, to send a memo to lawmakers on Tuesday notifying them that security screenings would be required for members seeking access to the chamber and that lawmakers who declined to wear masks would be removed from the House floor. Several Republicans responded by yelling that their rights were being violated as they passed through the metal detectors, behavior that has exasperated Democrats.

I dont know what the consequences are going to be for people who hold power and dont ever want to be held accountable, Rep. Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, told NPR on Wednesday about lawmakers who bypassed security measures in the Capitol. He added that defiance by lawmakers was a sign of how obnoxious things have become for some of these folks who were supporting Donald Trump. The rules dont apply to them.

Ms. Boebert unofficially started her campaign for Congress in September 2019 in Denver, announcing to the Democratic presidential candidate Beto ORourke that he would not be taking one of the most potent symbols of rural autonomy: her guns.

I was one of the gun-owning Americans who heard you speak regarding your Hell yes, Im going to take your AR-15s and AK-47s, Ms. Boebert said to Mr. ORourke at the time. Well, Im here to say hell no, youre not.

She has expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy group, though she has tried to temper that by saying she is not a follower.

Ms. Boebert was running a restaurant in Colorados ranch country where she encouraged the servers to openly carry guns when she stunned the states Republican establishment by defeating a five-term incumbent in the primary and then winning the general election.

She was so inexperienced, said Dick Wadhams, the former head of the Colorado Republican Party. I dont think she even knew she had no chance, which turned out to be a good thing for her. She caught everyone by surprise.

So far, she has had the same effect on Washington. On Wednesday, the Capitol Police and Ms. Boeberts office declined to respond to requests about whether she had actually been carrying a gun either time she had trouble getting into the chamber. Ms. Boebert has said that she has a concealed carry permit, issued through the District of Columbia, for her gun and has claimed on Twitter that she has the right to freely carry within the Capitol complex, which is not true.

On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department did not respond when asked if Washingtons police chief, Robert J. Contee III, had met with Ms. Boebert to explain the districts gun laws to her, as he had said he would do last week.

Ms. Boebert has frequently defended her behavior as one of the reasons she was elected. Just as Mr. Trump has done with his base, she tells her followers that she is fighting for them. As for her right to carry a gun, she has written on Twitter that self-defense is the most basic human right.

In Colorado, Ms. Boeberts district covers much of western Colorado, a sprawling, politically diverse landscape of mesas and jagged mountains that includes liberal enclaves like Aspen and Telluride as well as often overlooked towns where cattle ranching, mining and natural gas drilling pay the bills. For generations, the district elected deeply rooted local men who, whether Democrat or Republican, tended to be cowboy-boot-wearing moderates focused on the local economy and natural resources.

Once a reliably red state, Colorado flipped with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, and Republicans have struggled to regain a foothold. Democrats now hold both Senate seats, the state House and the governors office.

Republicans seeking to keep viability in the state regard Ms. Boeberts behavior warily.

I think most Republicans here are still behind her, Mr. Wadhams said. But she cant just pick fights in Washington. She has got to pay attention to the issues in her district, too: in water, natural resources, mining. If she doesnt do that, shes in real trouble.

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A Republican Lawmaker for Whom the Spectacle Is the Point - The New York Times