Is there anybody left in the Republican Party who's seriously fighting Trumpism? It sure doesn't seem like it. The most I see from anyone is strategic silence while everyone else actively begs for Trump's support.
Am I missing somebody important? Is there anyone on the right who still takes the January 6 insurrection seriously? Or who publicly fights the Big Lie about 2020 election fraud? Or tells Fox News to its face to knock off the anti-vaccine nonsense?
There's Liz Cheney, I guess. Anyone else?
Adam Kinzinger, IL-16
Liz Cheney
It says a lot about your Republicans if Liz Chaney all of a sudden is the
“ Good Republican” .
A conspiracy theorist who supported the “birthers” and claimed Obama was secretly positive to Jihadists .
https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/foxs-liz-cheney-obama-wants-weaken-united-states-he-wants-diminish-our-power-world
A comment from a worried Swede
But didn't they both vote against stronger voting rights protection, etc, in defense of republican minority rule?
The big orange loser is there natural consequence of decades of minority rule tactics by Republicans. If one didn't fight it one isn't fighting it's beneficiary.
I think he soured on El Pepe Maximo after the Afghan withdrawal debacle.
I don't know if WA-3 Jaime Herrera Beutler has been dragged to the darkside yet.
She never left.
G. W. Bush for what it’s worth (not much).
https://kinzinger.house.gov/ maybe?
Really sort of scary to think about how so many low information republican voters will go to the polls not knowing how insane and extreme their party has become.
Oddly, it's these low information voters who are in control of the Republican Party. Trump shaped them with his anti-elite, anti-intellectual populism - and Trump's power comes solely from the backing of these people.
Progress one nails it. This is entirely the base, as shaped by Fox and the right wing media universe, and too many evangelical pulpits. Elected republicans are terrified of the republican base, wholey owned by Trump.
They thought they could throw some scraps to the ravenous beast that is the base and they'd be satisfied. Unfortunately, someone forgot to lock the cage and the beast is loose.
Are we still supposed to empathize and reach out to them, like you admonished us to do about a year ago?
Only with a 2 meter min distance and a face mask.
There's a couple hanging out at think tanks and newspapers, but mostly not. Trump and Trumpism is the dominant force in the Republican Party, and even without his Twitter he managed to keep his grip on the party after he lost.
Several Democratic congress men have commented how in private numerous Republicans agree Trump is crazy and corrupt, but none are brave enough or honest enough to go public.
No, and there never was.
Modulo your definition of the nature/bounds of such fighting, a few things which have darkened your inbox at least somewhat recently:
09/25/2021:
https://www.newsweek.com/maricopa-republicans-call-arizona-gop-chair-kelli-ward-resign-over-election-lies-1632701
09/20/2021: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/20/republicans-target-texas-governor-abbott-covid-coffin-wall-ad/8418631002/
And then for the asking them to fall on their swords files:
09/17/2021: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/house-republican-voted-impeach-trump-run-80070431
Perhaps the second GOPer on this committee: https://www.npr.org/2021/07/27/1020713409/here-are-the-9-lawmakers-investigating-the-jan-6-capitol-attack
(already mentioned by architectonic)
Why is this a surprise? Trumpism is the only way Republicans can win elections. These people are literally (as they see it, and they're probably right) fighting for the life of the Republican party.
Didn't GWB hold a fundraiser for Liz Cheney. Seemed significant possibly.
Yes, Adam Kinzinger (IL-16). He appears frequently on news shows blasting trump for the Big Lie. It's questionable whether he'll continue to be in Congress, though, because Illinois is losing a Congressional seat and Democrats are in charge of the redistricting.
I'm not sure they could preserve a seat for him if they tried.
If you include in your definition GOP governors, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is not a centrist and totally not a Trump fan. He's a faux centrist IMO just enough to get himself elected and reelected in MD. Also the Governor's of Massachusetts and Vermont.
Ol' Larry BMI is just jealous of El Jefe's girlish figure.
... & before anyone jumps on me for calling cancer survivor Gov. Hogan a fat lump of horseshit, let me remind that obesity is not a chemo side effect.
There's been less of Larry of late, like Christie a sure sign of a run for the presidency in 2024 as the anti-Trump candidate. Don't see him catching fire at all.
Really don't like the fat shaming because I'm pretty fat.
I am chunky like the candy bar, but Larry Hogan is a 1960s GQP Congressional failson just like NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
Trump is the flag on their battleship and you don't spit on the flag, even if it becomes irrelevant in the fight itself. So yeah, "strategic silence" is a good way of putting it.
SoCon columinst Rod Dreher had a piece up not long ago denouncing, quite vitriolically, Trump for his grift over the stolen election hoax. Unfortunately I cannot link to it since the TAC website is going through a cranky phase and will only let me see its columnists' most recent postings.
After Rod read Stormy Daniels's description of El Jefe's primitive root wiener, he knew that the Maralago strongman was weak.
Funny, I would say Rod's denunciation of Trump- "he has the right ideas but he's so vulgar!"- has been waning of late. He took a righteous stand in favor of masks, shutdowns, and social distancing- but is currently falling back on mandates. He seems to be worried that he has isolated himself from Tucker Carlson and the crazies.
Do not invest any kind hope in the man even if he's not enamored of Trump as a person. Anyone who thinks the U.S can be governed like Hungary or Poland is not a serious person to take into account and I speak as someone who used to read him. I glad I've spared myself his daily outrage drama and find life much more pleasant now that I've discarded it. One wonders if he, like so many on the Right are mere "actors" just in it for the ratings or the clicks in order to earn a living. That's fine as far as it goes but I don't have to play along and I recommend you don't either.
Brett Stephens
David Brooks
Michael Gerson
LOL
&LOL
&LOL
LOL indeed on these three. Ana Navarro comes to mind though. She is very outspoken about Trump on the TV machine. If that qualifies as "fighting" Trump I wouldn't know.
I had lunch with a Republican colleague from work the other day. They are all my enemy. There is no hope for them.
There were Republicans who had the courage to stand up to Trump, even at risk of getting primaried or pushed out of the party.
They stood up to Trump, and mostly got primaried or pushed out of the party. So now the party consists of the folks who didn't do that.
This is the problem with basing one's solution to a political problem on "politicians should behave courageously instead of bending with the political winds." The politicians who do that get a fast ticket out of politics, and then they aren't around any more to solve the problem. The only sustainable solution is one which makes it politically advantageous--or at least not suicidal--to do the right thing.
Which brings us back to the right-wing insanity which drives submission to Trump in the first place, and thus to Fox News.
> The politicians who [“behave courageously”] get a fast ticket out of politics, and then they aren't around any more to solve the problem.
No sympathy here. They acquiesced in the creation of the monster they now dare not defy. Since Goldwater and Reagan (“Government is the problem”), Republicans have fomented the mistrust of institutions, starting with government, and extending to science, academia, and expertise of all kinds, and by implementing the Southern Strategy, encouraged racism and white supremacy in their party. They never had any intention of “solving the problem”.
Why are we even discussing this?
At Trump's age the party had to have a plan B in place should he die.
The problem is that Trump has made the base believe ONLY HE can fix things.
He hired the best people, he negotiated the best deals, he stopped illegal immigration and it was all because of HIM.
I would fear the republican party more if Trump were dead. As of now they are the split tent party to the Dems big tent party
But even DEMs know there's a limit to Joe B's lifetime...........
The train has left the station. What does it mean to say that the R party has become the "party of Rump?"
I agree with about everything stated so far in this thread. We all understand how the place we are now has been in the making for 50 years. We know who Dr. Frankenstein is. We know why he created the monster.
But we have to deal with the reality that exists today. The R party of Dwight Eisenhower is long long dead. That's not new news. But is there anything left to be salvaged? I think not.
Sane R's have left the party or been drummed out. The individuals who *control* the real technical assets of a political party (mailing lists, registration lists, donor lists, volunteer lists) are fully committed to the anti-governmental crusade. Essentially, that means that the party that *was* the party of Eisenhower is now the insurrectionist party. It's a done deal.
What has been the role of Rump? Well we need to understand that, as people who have been close to him, Rump has a savant type of talent for spotting psychological weakness in humans. With a talent like that, is it any surprise that a person would choose con-man as a career? So we can moralize about it but we mustn't underestimate the raw talent. (A lot of people didn't like Charles Barkley, for his personality. But an NBA team could recognize the talent.) I'll come back to the con in a moment.
Second piece is, I suspect that the prime motivation Rump had to run for POTUS was to avoid prison, by gaining control of the DOJ. That the same motivation explains the diligence in promoting the big lie and the attempted steal of the 2020 election that he legitimately lost. (If the hail-Mary worked he'd be back in control of DOJ). What he's angling for now is a Repub POTUS in 2025. If it's himself he's immune, if it's someone else he can get a pardon.
Bottom line of all of this is that Rump doesn't give a sh*t about the R party, he's just using it. Remember, another thing he specializes in is "branding" though his talent in that area is probably average. Among other things, a major political party in the US is a brand. Rump has stolen the brand. It’s the same thing that he would complain about if you asked him about China stealing US intellectual property. He has stolen the brand and the thievery is complete. Everything is now just advertising and PR techniques. Nobody is going to get the brand back.
The best that can be expected of reasonable middle-right conservatives is that they start a third party and are smart enough to figure out how to play it so that it hurts the R's more than the D's.
ooops left out a word: as people who are close to him have reported...
There is no such thing as Trumpism. There is your first mistake. All grift's end.
Don't think of the Republican party as a political party--they seem to be more into WWF territory now.
Donald Trump as Chris Benoit & the GQP as his wife & kid.
... Too soon?
The main problem with the GOP Nevertrumpers is that they all pretend that the GOP prior to Trump was innocent as white snow. They are understandably unwilling/unable to face the whole truth about the GOP--but they stole the Presidency in 2000 already, and at least one SCOTUS seat more recently among tons of minor shenanigans, not to mention grave policy errors and corrupt administration of the IRS.
Does The Bulwark count or do you think the "neocons" are coming back to the center?
Who was that republican you wrote in the last time we voted in California?