Dem
51
GOP
49
We are not referring to the entire Republican Party, of course, just Donald Trump, his base and his enablers. Which, OK, is a majority of Republicans these days. Anyhow, those are the ones who are psycho, and they are eating each other alive these days. For the internecine battle over immigration, see the above item. And now we'll add three more items to the ledger.
First, Donald Trump is working to squash Nikki Haley like a bug. And to that end, he is now targeting her supporters with his vitriol. Specifically, he has announced that anyone who gives Haley any money from this point forward is no longer welcome in MAGA world. We get it that the base loves it when Trump takes on his "enemies." And it is probably true that many Haley donors are not future Trump voters. But surely some Haley donors are, or at least might be. A guy who has little margin for error takes a big gamble when he risks alienating those people.
Second, there is Kari Lake's latest nuttery in Arizona. The leader of the Arizona GOP, at least until this week, was a fellow named Jeff DeWit. At some point in the past, he had a conversation with Lake in which he suggested the Party would be better off in 2024 if she did not run, and that there would be "financial benefits" if she played ball (the apparent implication was that some juicy appointments to corporate boards were available as inducements). Somehow, the conversation between DeWit and Lake was recorded, and the Lake campaign released it, while allegedly threatening DeWit that they had even worse stuff if he did not resign. So, he fell on his sword.
And finally, the Michigan GOP is still in chaos. As you can see above, Willard (a.k.a. "Mitt") has the Romney family spine this week. And so, when the RNC was asked to intervene in the struggle between (outgoing?) Michigan GOP Chair Kristina Karamo and (incoming?) Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra, Ronna Romney McDaniel and the RNC pooh-bahs advised that Karamo "appears" to have been properly removed, while at the same time refusing to recognize Hoekstra. Needless to say, this does nothing to resolve the matter, which is now most certainly going to be dealt with in court.
We put these items together because it is simply not conceivable that a political party can have a successful election cycle (or even an average election cycle) with so much backbiting going on. Recent history makes this clear; the Republicans blew a golden chance in 2022, in significant part because the MAGA and non-MAGA/semi-MAGA members just could not come together. Maybe they'll work things out during the winter and spring, and will present a united front by the summer and fall, although with Trump leading the party, we very much doubt it. And if the squabbling within the ranks continues, then it's going to be another disappointing cycle for the GOP. (Z)