Photo by Igor Rodrigues on Unsplash
The current Republican Party is fractured and becoming more so every day. There are those who still adhere to basic conservative values and haven’t lost their ability to reason, but too many fall into the category of conspiracy theorists who love to place blame.
They also have trouble with ambiguity. In today’s increasingly uncertain world, they are struggling more than usual — especially since COVID is not only here to stay but is constantly morphing into new variants. It’s hard for them.
They don’t believe in science and can’t seem to keep up with new information, so instead they resort to whatever disinformation is easiest to absorb — forget that much of it comes from known nutjobs.
The issue for them isn’t what’s true, it’s what they can get their heads around.
Now, they’ve got another problem — one that might hurt them even more than their defiant resistance to reality. They can’t stop fighting with each other. Here are just a few examples.
Meghan McCain is speaking out against the media for their coverage of Marjorie Taylor Green, who she says is ruining the party with her crazy talk. According to McCain, many Republicans do not support Green and see her as preventing the party from being taken seriously. She wants the media to stop covering Green so much because it’s making the rest of them look bad. McCain is also calling for Green to be removed from “all Congressional appointments.”
While McCain may be correct, she is in the minority in her party, and most like-minded Republicans aren’t willing to speak out. Still, McCain isn’t the only one fighting with Green.
Green is also at the center of an ongoing conflict with Rep. Nancy Mace. Mace had the audacity to criticize comments made by Rep. Lauren Boebert, in which Boebert likened Rep. Ilhan Omar to a terrorist, based on nothing more than her Muslim faith.
While Boebert did apologize for the comment, Green lashed out by calling Mace “trash” for having criticized Boebert in the first place to which Mace responded by calling Green “crazy.” And it didn’t stop there. Now Green has focused on Mace’s willingness to consider rape and incest as possible exceptions to her anti-abortion stance, which Green is now interpreting as “pro-abort.”
It appears the new goal of these particular members of Congress is to one-up each other in the insult department. It doesn’t seem to matter what the topic is — as long as they can keep up the argument, they get the coverage — which is probably just how they like it. Never mind that they are but a handful of Republicans in Congress. The media likes a show, and they’re getting one.
Green has also been casting doubt on the leadership potential of Rep. Kevin McCarthy. Though he is poised to become Speaker of the House, should Republicans take the majority in 2022, Green has publicly announced that McCarthy does not have the support he needs to achieve that goal.
And there are the ongoing efforts by Republican leadership to discredit every Republican who voted to either impeach Trump or verify the results of the 2021 election.
But perhaps the most hopeful news furthering the disintegration of the Republican Party is Trump’s latest tirade about former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump is still smarting from the fact that Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his presidential win.
Though this happened well over a year ago, Trump has not forgotten and was recently quoted as saying “F — k him. The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with.”
Trump didn’t stop there. In a recent interview, he went on to say that he thought the Palestinian Authority Leader President Mahmoud Abbas was more committed to peace than Netanyahu. Trump also likened Abbas to a “father,” and described him as “terrific.”
While this might seem insignificant, given that Netanyahu is no longer Prime Minister, Trump’s words have greatly offended his evangelical base. According to one of Trump’s early backers, the evangelical base in America has more support for Netanyahu than they do for Trump — so Trump’s latest outburst could become a problem.
In a letter to Trump, written by Mike Evans, he said “Please, I beg of you, don’t put us in the position to choose between you and Bible land. There is no possibility you can win again if Bible-believing evangelicals see you as the ‘F — k Netanyahu’ president who considers Abbas a father-like figure and blames the State of Israel, and not the Palestinians, for not making peace.”
Let’s hope Evans is right. I still don’t think Trump will run in 2024, I never have. Michael Cohen doesn’t either, and he should know. Cohen thinks Trump is just using the possibility of re-election to raise more money, and that makes perfect sense to me.
Still, if Trump does end up on the 2024 ticket and continues to air his petty grievances for every perceived betrayal, there’s no telling who else he may alienate.
I’ll be happy if he just sticks to his guns here and keeps up the bad-mouthing of Netanyahu. If Evans is correct, that could cost Trump the evangelical base.
What a lovely thought.