The start of President Donald Trump’s second indictment trial in the Senate comes on a single charge of inciting insurrection at the U.S. Capitol when the Republican party is harassed.
As the Republican Party defends its future and Trump’s role in it, Democrats take advantage of the deep divisions within the Republican ranks above its right wing and try to define the party’s front line by its most extreme members. .
House Democrat campaign apparatus deployed $ 500,000 for an advertising campaign linking Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-California, the minority leader, and seven vulnerable House Republicans in the districts President Joe Biden won last year in the extremist rhetoric of the representative of Georgia QAnon Conspiracy Theory.
The Democrats’ initial opening accuses swing district Republicans of staying “with Q, not you.”
“Washington Republicans have made their decision: they have chosen to deal with the murky QAnon assassin who has taken over his party,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, DN.Y., chairman of the Committee. Democratic Congress Campaign. They are “refusing to hold those responsible for the attack on the Capitol responsible, and offer nothing more than empty words after years of publishing lies and conspiracy theories.”
The Washington Post data checker wrote that the effort to link members to conspiracy theory is “misleading,” but all eight voted against Trump’s second ouster, sparked by the rhetoric itself. former president before a crowd of supporters marched on the Capitol in an effort to thwart Biden’s victory certification. And while some criticized Trump’s behavior, fewer of them voted against certifying the election votes of at least one of the two battlefields – Arizona and Pennsylvania – based on unfounded allegations of fraud repeatedly defended by Trump. and the far right flank.
“We have to hold these Republicans accountable,” said former Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala, who lost her Miami-based district last year to now be a representative. Maria Elvira Salazar, one of the Republicans targeted by the Democrats’ new announcements.
Democratic strategist Ian Russell called voters’ first launch a messaging “road test” and praised Maloney for the early attack.
“I think it’s a smart move,” Russell told ABC News Monday. “President Maloney is taking advantage of the dividing lines within the Republican party. They have cracks in his coalition and he is taking a lever, and he is showing the American people, by showing voters, that Republicans are on the side of dangerous extremists who he stormed the Capitol, which holds all these views that will not go down well in districts across America. “
As Republicans defend the attacks of Democrats under the newly installed chair, they also consider how to reconcile their differences internally in the post-Trump era.
According to some strategists, their ability to unite over the next two years will be crucial in determining their success in regaining the majority they lost in the 2018 midterm elections.
“The Republican brand has been mistreated by Trump and by recent extremism … this has been a consequence of Trumpism,” said Ken Spain, a former senior official of the National Committee of the Republican Congress. “Republicans need to unite around an economic argument that will likely resonate among voters in two years.
Even with Democrats pulling a page out of their playbook, the Republican Party makes clear its plans to continue the cultural war offensive against its rivals.
“We will continue to pound House Democrats on their socialist agenda of job destruction and leave high marginal conspiracies in the DCCC,” NRCC communications director Michael McAdams said in a statement indicating that the campaign arm will adhere to its 2020 strategy.
Throughout the last cycle, the GOP relentless brand As Democratic candidates as a party to “spread the police” in an effort to put more moderate members in a closed spot with the progressive wing, the party drastically reduced the majority of House Democrats.
Shalala admitted that the Republicans’ strategy “certainly was” effective in stifling the health-centered message of last-cycle Democrats. Looking to the future, when the party defends its margin of shaving next year, Democrats must give voters a reason to vote for them and not just Republicans, he said.
“Campaigns are not about candidates. They are about improving people’s lives,” he said. “We can’t win by tying all Republicans to the right wing alone.”
“We have to have substantial things that we’ve done. And because we control both houses, as well as the presidency, Democrats will be able to say, ‘Look, that’s what happens when you elect Democrats.’ “Reject your vote if you elect a Republican,” he continued.
Shalala highlighted Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which Democrats in Congress are working on, as an echo issue and one of the ways Democrats improve the lives of its components.
“And Democrats will get full credit for that,” he said.
The Democrats ’decision to capitalize on open wounds within the Republican group comes as they seek a new polarizing figure after Trump, who can be as unifying and energizing for the base as the former president.
“With Trump disappearing from the scene, Democrats need a Boogeyman or, in this case, a woman,” Spain said.
But similarly to Shalala, the Republican strategist is not convinced that the Democrats ’inaugural strategy will influence voters alone.
“It’s likely to make some Republicans twist,” Spain said, “but in the end it’s tying the actions of an obscure member to an entire party and that will be hard to do.”
Spain compared the Democrats’ efforts to a similar campaign they did 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 significant impact on the outcome of the 2022 election,” he continued, with Democrats controlling the three levers of power. “2022 will be a referendum on Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress. Period.”
But that obscure member has caused headaches in the Republican Party and reflects the biggest rift within the party over whether they should continue to align with Trump or move forward.
Last week, McCarthy decided not to punish Greene, who said he spoke with Trump and was “grateful for his support” at the height of his expulsion for his history of incendiary comments, which goes from supporting to violence against Democrats, to the point of spreading false claims about school shootings and defending QAnon conspiracy theories. Greene has since expressed his regret for some of his previous comments from home, but has never apologized explicitly for his behavior.
Meanwhile, the approach of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell diverged from his counterpart in the House. He suggested that Greene’s acceptance of conspiracy theories amounted to a “cancer” in the party. McCarthy left it in the hands of Democrats to penalize the early years and Greene was stripped of her committees in a House vote, where 11 Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats to get her out of the two. committee functions.
Russell said the Republican Party does not appear to be re-evaluating after losing the White House and Senate or getting rid of its former leader.
“Both parties, after losing the national elections, are dusting off … and finding a way back,” he said. “What you’ve seen since the election, though, is that Republicans are doubling the Trump chaos. Marjorie Taylor Greene, QAnon, they’re all symptoms of the underlying disease, which is this chaos that’s at the heart, that has taken over the modern conservatism and the modern republican party “.
“That’s all they have in the gas tank right now,” he said about the embrace of Trumpian politics. “And that won’t get them very far.”
Party leaders may remain on course, but in the eyes of Americans, the Republican Party faces a broader perception problem with its extremist factions.
In a new ABC News / Ipsos poll, Americans say there are more radical extremists within the Republican Party than the Democratic Party by a margin of 17 points. And many more Democrats (80%) believe there are more radical extremists in the Republican Party than in their country, while 57% of Republicans say the same about the Democratic Party.
To further complicate Republican issues is the flow of retirements from his conference, most recently from Republican Rob Portman and Richard Shelby, two establishment figures within the party. They are unlikely to be the last, Russell said, as the ads spur predictions of more Republican retirements in the coming months.
“With the House Conference center of gravity so far on the right, it will become an increasingly difficult place for traditional conservatives,” Russell said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw some of the members in the longer term … realizing that this is not an environment with which they can do anything.”