“I’ve been screaming, ‘We need to become a big-tent party!’ for some time. But I think they misunderstood me and thought I meant ‘carnival tent.’” — former GOP congressman Denver Riggleman
Lol. Well, when they voted for Trump, they knew what they were getting. And let’s not forget, the carnival is working for them. Here’s Dan Pfeiffer, former Obama staffer:
According to reports, Mitch McConnell is livid at Hawley et al for forcing Republican to go on the record with a vote about the election results. Ideally, McConnell wants all of his members to have their conspiracy cake and eat it too — continue to push false allegations about election fraud to fire up the base without alienating Independents and suburban voters allergic to Trumpy conspiracy theories. But McConnell is reaping what he sowed.
In the days after the election, McConnell refused to congratulate Joe Biden or even refer to him as the “President-Elect.” He didn’t speak out against the lies being spread by Trump and others. McConnell’s silence created a vacuum that was filled by conspiracy theory mongering nuts (Trump) and ambitious snake oil salesman (Hawley/Cruz). I presume McConnell chose this path because he wanted to keep Trump voters fired up for the Georgia elections. But this type of short-term opportunism is how the Republicans ended up with Trump. In 2011, they stayed silent during Trump’s birther crusade back in the hope that it would help them win some elections.
In the post-Trump era, Mitch McConnell is the leader of the Republican Party and he failed his first test.
All of the above is about the motivation of individual politicians and the larger insanity of portions of the Republicanbase, but I believe there is something much more insidious going on. Something that explains why so many Republicans are willing to risk their reputations with election truthing.
All of this conspiracy mongering has a purpose. It is to create a pretext to impose even more draconian voter suppression measures.
At the Presidential level, Democrats improved on their performance in 44 of 50 states. The Democratic gains in Georgia, Arizona, and even Texas are a five alarm fire for the Republican Party. Across the country, Republicans are going to try to roll back voting by mail and early voting options. They want to put in place even more onerous voter ID laws. These false allegations of fraud will be the public rationale for measures to make voting harder.
When you make up allegations out of whole cloth, you can make them about anywhere. But the Republicans have focused their energy on claiming election theft in Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Atlanta because these cities have large population of Black and Brown voters. Despite some marginal gains with these voters in 2020, Republicans still view making it harder for communities of color to vote as the straightest line to electoral success. Challenging the election results helps pave the way.
This is obviously correct. And by keeping the Trump cultists riled up, they can keep in line anyone who thinks they might like to do something on a bipartisan basis (for instance, on keeping people from dying from the pandemic.)
Also, there are just a whole bunch of batshit insane Republican officials who are just as worked up as the craziest MAGA QAnon freak. The crazy is running strong.