The three day Conservative Political Action Committee, (CPAC), was scheduled to be a celebration and blind worship of Trump and his political “philosophy” of populist totalitarianism. The latter includes near absolute dictatorship and an alternate reality to the world. Trump, in what one would have prayed would be his farewell address, did not surprise in the content which was self congratulatory, full of self pity, denial of responsibility, revenge, vitriolic attacks on his successor, very short on policy and very long on lying. However, once there was a secret ballot only fifty - five percent voted for him to be the Republican presidential nominee for 2024 while only sixty - eight percent wanted him to run at all. (Presumably fifteen percent of those wanted him to lose the nomination). On the other hand ninety - five percent were happy with his policies! So what does all this mean in March of 2021?
SIDELINED TRUMP STILL CONTROLS BUT IN SECRET BALLOTS NOT SO MUCH
The crowd that pitch up to CPAC are the extreme of the extreme and by and large are the movers and shakers of what is left of the movers and shakers of the GOP. That this crowd are not that happy with Trump when the ballot is secret could not have filled “The Leader’s” narcissistic heart with joy. In addition to his tepid support at CPAC, the secret House ballot vote was overwhelmingly in favor of Elizabeth Cheney who advocated his impeachment and the fact that after McConnell had called on the Criminal Justice to investigate his incitement no one in the Senate tried to replace him has to signify that below the surface he is not too loved. Cheney and McConnell are on the list that he is seeking to revenge Not to mentions all those names he spat out with venom that need to be purged from the party for not blindly following him.
Trump has to be finding it difficult without every word of his being headline news. Verbally undressed having been banned from Twitter, with no WhiteHouse press pool surrounding him reporting every syllable, he is very much off the radar. Even his major CPAC rant was the third or fourth story in the majority of the news outlets visual and digital. Only Fox hung in and they have lost their top rating to MSNBC. They are being out righted by Mickey Mouse news organizations.
However there is a disconnect because on the ground, even though generalized support is flagging, (see Georgia), it is where Trump really exerts his influence. To be more specific the local Republican State Committees and their legislators are the arenas where Trump’s biggest backing lies as well as the base that vote in the Primaries. So it is at the State level in the Primaries where Trump’s strength lies. Translated into political reality he has the potential of putting up a Primary challenger to anyone who doesn’t worship at the shrine and getting his sycophants the Republican nominations for local offices as well as for national elections. The fact that his national nominees chances are far less against Democrats doesn’t bother him but puts the fear of God into the McConnells and the McCarthys of this world.
WHAT CAN GO WRONG WITH THE REPUBLICAN BELIEF THAT THEY CAN CARRY ON AS USUAL WITH OR WITHOUT TRUMP
Lots could go wrong.
Premise one: The Republican legislators believe that they can publicly back Trump while secretly hoping that in the intervening few years with all his problems he will become history. They have to be pretty confident that Trump will not even stand because of his legal jeopardy They therefore can presumably carry on as normal, even publicly embracing Trump and populist Trumpism. They are wrong as they don’t understand populism.This type of totalitarianism has to have a charismatic leader who needs time to establish him or herself. Trump will not put himself out of the race till the bitter end leaving very little time for someone who hasn’t the name recognition and known entertainment value to draw massive crowds. The best bet is Don J. Jnr. but he is in almost as much legal trouble as his daddy, But the Republican legislators might find themselves backing a philosophy that without a leader isn’t politically viable.
Premise two: Trump’s legal woes - from rape to defrauding on his taxes some believe will make his base lose faith in him. No, it won’t. It is just the same old same old in spades. It is a witch hunt he will scream. He will attack and abuse the courts as he has done even with the Supreme Court that he chose. Even the Georgia criminal litigation where he is being investigated for his efforts to change the voters’ choice will not offend the “Stop the Steal” crowd cause that was what he was supposedly doing in Georgia.
Where he is extremely vulnerable is in the investigations and prosecutions relating to the Capitol insurrection. These were carried out by his militia and right wing base, all of whom are pleading in mitigation, “Trump sent us”. They have to be feel betrayed that he has thrown them under the bus by advocating for their prosecution when pleading innocence of his own involvement of the storm on the Capitol. Q,Anon are losing faith because he isn’t still President and didn’t arrest Biden. Even March 4 has passed by and he hasn’t re installed himself.
Trump called the insurgents “special” and that he “loved” them when he addressed them at the Capitol. He then insulted them by saying it wasn’t really his boys that were on the job but the left wing group ANTIFA disguised as his team which was also the story punted by his most ardent Republican Legislator supporters. His mob reacted angrily to this suggestion as if they were being abandoned again. All this in the light of the background which is incontrovertible that he made arrangements for this protest, egged his thugs on for months ahead to be there on January 6 and even promised to march with them to the Capitol, which of course he didn’t. That large chunk of his coalition are not going to vote for Trump or his anointed one.
The real problem is that the full story is still to come out of his role in this matter. Even in the early hours it doesn’t look good. In the initial Senate hearings for whatever reasons the request for the National Guard to come to the rescue was held up for close on four hours. The chain of command for this delay already extends right up to his Acting Secretary of Defense. The General in command of the National Guard said he received a letter the previous day instructing to await consent. Then in typical subordinate understatement he found this “unusual”. He had the Guardsmen already to go in buses hanging around for hours. There is also evidence of a communication just prior to the insurrection between Roger Stone, his life long aide who he had just pardoned, and a leader of the right wing militia, The Proud Boys.
The problem isn’t only for Trump it is for the Republican legislators as well in that they really colluded with the invaders by carrying on after the insurrection voting to obstruct the ratification of the Biden victory. The fact that there is video of some of the invaders being given tours of the Capitol giving them the lay of the land in the two days prior to January 6 is in the hands of the District Attorney of Washington DC. Congresswoman Lofgren has catalogued in nearly two thousand pages the social media postings of her one hundred and thirty - nine Republican colleagues who voted against ratifying Biden’s Electoral College win with a view to assessing the role they played in inciting violence against the Capitol. Representatives Gosar and Brooks made the most incendiary communications the former claiming that sedition and treason were justified in reversing the stolen election.
Two persuasive civil cases have been filed against Trump, Trump Jnr., Rudi Giuliani and Congressman Brooks by Congressmen Thompson and Swalwell for breaking Federal Laws in that they incited a riot, colluded with the insurrectionists and obstructed elected officers from fulfilling their constitutional duties. Close on three hundred insurrectionists have been arrested and they are all singing like birds, Besides naming Trump as their reason for being there, there is evidence of preplanning. There is going to be a ton of damning material arising from this lot.
There are going to be years of this peeling away of this treasonous act and every step of the way is going to be dynamite. The Democrats control Congress and they are going to get all the assistance they ask from the Biden WhiteHouse such as documents and the like, The newly appointed Attorney General has indicated that getting to the bottom of this seditious act will be his top priority.
The suburban and urban Republican voters will be even further disgusted. On a macro level the fact that there is proven actual collusion between Trump and or his surrogates with the insurrectionists will make it impossible for the GOP traditionalists to be in the same party as him. The Party will have to split.
Premise three: McConnell believes by being the party of No regardless of how popular Biden’s initiatives will create the impression that Biden has failed in his bipartisan initiative.This approach is coupled with the fact that the WhiteHouse occupant’s party invariably loses seats in the midterms and so McConnell will regain control of the Senate. Jay H. Ell is sure with Biden passing his Covid Relief Bill and possibly his Infrastructure Bill together with virtually eradicating Covid by summer, sheer obstructionism can hardly be a winning strategy. The fact that over seventy percent polled are in favor of the Covid legislation including sixty percent of Republicans makes this move asinine. In front of the world McConnell and company are using delaying tactics while food lines are getting longer and unemployment benefits are due to run out on March 14. This may have worked with Obamacare because the smear was that you are going to lose your doctor and health care costs were going to up. Over half the electorate bought into the lies.
Premise four: Voter Suppression. There are currently over two hundred and fifty legislative initiatives by Republican State Legislatures to restrict voting in a manner that will cut the African American vote, particularly in purple states such as Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia. This is one strategy that the two constituencies within the Republican Parties agree upon. This is a disgraceful anti democratic maneuver that has been used since the Reconstruction Period in the nineteenth century by the Southern States. In the mid to late sixties it was reversed by the Civil Rights legislation but it has been slowly whittled away by Conservative Supreme Courts. The Robert’s court even without the Trump appointees was gung ho to acquiesce to its castration and is about to strip away the last vestiges in a case before it at the moment.
The proposed legislation on the books by the States limits Sunday voting, makes mail in voting and even voter registration more difficult, decreases polling places and giving food and water to voters standing in the sun for hours, to name but a few of the stumbling blocks that will impact minority voters the most. This is the Republicans best bet by far. That with gerrymandering the constituencies has stood them in good stead for many years. This will perpetuate minority government for the foreseeable future.
The Democrats have passed HR 1 in the House which is a new Federal Voters’ Right Bill, which like the Acts in the 1960’s would override the States’ efforts. The fact that most of the Republican electorate support HR 1 will not impact the Republican Senators. This Bill will need ten Republicans to vote for it in the Senate which is not going to happen. Biden might just have to use the nuclear option getting the Democratic slim majority to abandon the filibuster. Biden a traditionalist will find it hard to advise that and then have to persuade two Democratic Party holdouts to go with it. But that remains an option which as the Republicans become more and more intransigent may become more and more inevitable.
An additional danger to the Republicans is that in several states this type of move has mobilized African Americans in greater numbers to go to the polls and wait for hours in line.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
The Republicans split as they are, are united on two issues - oppose every Democratic initiative and minority Government by voter suppression. They are haunted by what is going to arise out of the investigation of Trump’s attempt to overthrow the Government. If the multiple investigations turn out the way they are going there is no way that McConnell et al can pretend that “nothing has changed”. They also are risking losing more “worker” votes to Biden by opposing his financial relief packages. The survival to the GOP at the moment depends on what impact they can make with voter suppression and gerrymandering of districts. As the law stands at the moment the Democrats will get no help in overturning the States’ efforts on the grounds that the actions are unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The Republicans with the party split into those who want to abandon democracy and those who have no party policy, having ceded it all to Trump at the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination convention, are on the verge of imploding. If HR 1 passes the Senate because the filibuster is forsaken, they will be out of power for the next decade. In fact two parties may well rise up from the ashes.
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