The start of President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial by the Senate after a single charge of instigating an uprising in the Capitol arrives as the Republican Party is under siege.
As the GOP grapples with its future and Trump’s role in it, Democrats are grasping the deep divisions within the Republican ranks over its right wing and trying to define the party’s frontline by its most extreme members.
The House Democrats campaign machine put in $ 500,000 for an ad campaign in which Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., The minority leader, and seven vulnerable House Republicans in districts President Joe Biden beat Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s extremist rhetoric and the QAnon conspiracy theory.
The Democrats’ opening shot accuses Swing District Republicans of standing “with Q, not you.”
“Washington Republicans have made their choice – they chose to give in to the murderous QAnon mob that has taken over their party,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, DN.Y., the Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. They “refuse to hold to account those responsible for the attack on the Capitol, offering nothing but empty words after years of rousing lies and conspiracy theories.”
The Washington Post fact-checker wrote that the attempt to tie members to the conspiracy theory is “ misleading, ” but all eight voted against Trump’s second charge, triggered by the former president’s own rhetoric, before a mob of his supporters in a in no time marched to the Capitol. attempt to thwart the certification of Biden’s victory. And while some criticized Trump’s behavior, a smaller number voted against certifying the electoral votes of at least one of the two battlefields – Arizona and Pennsylvania – based on unfounded allegations of fraud made repeatedly by Trump and the far-right flank. adhered to.
“We have to hold these Republicans to account,” said the former Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala, who lost her Miami district to current Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, one of the Republicans targeted by Democrats’ new ads.
Democratic strategist Ian Russell called the early pitch to voters a “road test” and praised Maloney for the early attack.
“I think it’s a smart move,” Russell told ABC News Monday. Chairman Maloney is tapping into the fault lines within the Republican Party. They have cracks in their coalition and he takes a crowbar to them, and shows the American people, and shows voters that Republicans are on the side of dangerous extremists who stormed the Capitol, who have all these views that aren’t going to go down well in districts across America. “
While Republicans fend off Democrats’ attacks under the newly installed chairman, they are also considering how to reconcile their differences internally in the post-Trump era.
Their ability to unite over the next two years, some strategists say, will be critical to determining their success in regaining the majority they lost in the 2018 midterm elections.
“The Republican brand has been battered by Trump and some of the recent extremism … that’s an outgrowth of Trumpism,” said Ken Spain, a former senior official on the National Republican Congressional Committee. Republicans need to rally around an economic argument that is likely to resonate with voters in two years’ time.
Even with the Democrats pulling a page out of their playbook, the GOP is making clear their plans to continue the culture war offensive against their rivals.
“We will continue to push House Democrats to their groundbreaking socialist agenda and leave the resolution of marginal conspiracies to the DCCC,” said Michael McAdams, NRCC communications director, in a statement indicating that the campaign arm is committed to its 2020 campaign. will love. strategy.
During the last cycle, the GOP ruthlessly branded Democratic candidates like the “defund the police” party in an effort to keep the more moderate members in step with the progressive wing, the party dramatically reduced the majority of House Democrats.
Shalala admitted that the Republicans ‘strategy was “definitely” effective in drowning out the Democrats’ health-care message from the latest cycle. Looking to the future, when the party defends its wafer-thin margin next year, Democrats should give voters a reason to vote for them and not just Republicans, she said.
“Campaigns are not about the candidates. They are about improving people’s lives,” she said. “We cannot win by tying every Republican to the right wing.”
“We need to have substantial things that we’ve done. And since we control both houses, as well as the presidency, Democrats will be able to say, ‘Look, this is what happens when you choose Democrats.’ , ” she continued.
Shalala cited Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package that Congressional Democrats are creating as a resonant issue and one of the ways Democrats are improving the lives of their constituents.
“And the Democrats will take all the credit for it,” she said.
Democrats’ move to capitalize on open wounds within the Republican caucus comes as they seek after Trump for a new polarizing figure, one who could be just as unifying and energetic to grassroots as the former president.
“With Trump leaving the scene, Democrats need a Boogeyman, or in this case a woman,” Spain said.
But like Shalala, the Republican strategist is not convinced that the Democrats’ inaugural strategy will influence voters in itself.
“It will probably squirm some Republicans,” said Spain, “but you end up linking the actions of an obscure member to an entire party and that will be difficult.”
Spain likened the Democrats’ efforts to a similar campaign they conducted in 2009, when “Democrats tried to tie Republican members to Sarah Palin (and) the 2010 election had nothing to do with Sarah Palin.”
“This is unlikely to have a meaningful impact on the outcome of the 2022 election,” he continued, while Democrats controlled all three levers of power. “2022 will be a referendum on Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress. Period.”
But that one obscure member has caused a headache for the GOP and reflects the wider divide within the party as to whether they should continue to join Trump or move on with him.
Last week, McCarthy decided not to punish Greene, who said she spoke to Trump and was “ grateful for his support ” at the height of calls for deportation for her history of incendiary comments – ranging from endorsing violence against Democrats to the spreading false claims about school shootings and embracing QAnon conspiracy theories. Greene has since expressed regret for some of her previous House floor comments, but has never offered an explicit apology for her behavior.
The approach taken by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was different from his counterpart in the House of Representatives. He suggested that Greene’s embrace of conspiracy theories amounted to a “cancer” on the party. McCarthy left it to the Democrats to punish the freshman firebrand, and Greene was stripped of her committees in a plenary vote in which 11 Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats to remove her from two committee duties.
Russell said the GOP does not appear to be re-evaluating after losing the White House and Senate or freeing itself from their former leader.
“After losing a national election, both sides dusted themselves off … and figure out a way back,” he said. However, what you’ve seen since the election is that the Republicans are doubling down in Trumpian chaos. Marjorie Taylor Greene, QAnon, those are all symptoms of the underlying disease, that chaos that is at the core – that has taken over the modern age. , and the modern Republican Party. “
“That’s all they have in the gas tank right now,” he said of embracing Trumpian politics. “And that doesn’t get them very far.”
Party leaders may remain on track, but in the eyes of Americans, the GOP faces a broader perception problem with their extremist factions.
In a new ABC News / Ipsos poll, Americans say there are more radical extremists within the GOP than the Democratic Party by a 17-point margin. And many more Democrats – 80% – think there are more radical extremists in the GOP than in their own country, while 57% of Republicans say the same about the Democratic Party.
Complicating the problems for Republicans is the flow of retirements from their conference, most recently from Republican senses. Rob Portman and Richard Shelby, two established names within the party. They probably won’t be the last, Russell said, as the announcements fuel predictions of more Republican retirements in the coming months.
“With the center of gravity in the House conferences so far to the right, it is becoming an increasingly difficult place for traditional conservatives,” said Russell. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you start to see some of the members in the longer term … realize this is not an environment they can get anything done with.”