GOP in anarchy? Republicans in shambles? Something like that …
As President Trump prepares to leave office with his party in disarray, Republican leaders including Senator Mitch McConnell are maneuvering to thwart his grip on the G.O.P. in future elections, while forces aligned with Mr. Trump are looking to punish Republican lawmakers and governors who have broken with him.
The bitter infighting underscores the deep divisions Mr. Trump has created in the G.O.P. and all but ensures that the next campaign will represent a pivotal test of the party’s direction, with a series of clashes looming in the months ahead.
The friction is already escalating in several key swing states in the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s incitement of the mob that attacked the Capitol last week. They include Arizona, where Trump-aligned activists are seeking to censure the Republican governor they deem insufficiently loyal to the president, and Georgia, where a hard-right faction wants to defeat the current governor in a primary election.
In Washington, Republicans are particularly concerned about a handful of extreme-right House members who could run for Senate in swing states, potentially tarnishing the party in some of the most politically important areas of the country. Mr. McConnell’s political lieutenants envision a large-scale campaign to block such candidates from winning primaries in crucial states.
But Mr. Trump’s political cohort appears no less determined, and his allies in the states have been laying the groundwork to take on Republican officials who voted to impeach Mr. Trump — or who merely acknowledged the plain reality that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had won the presidential race.
Republicans on both sides of the conflict are acknowledging openly that they are headed for a showdown.
“Hell yes we are,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump.
Mr. Kinzinger was equally blunt when asked how he and other anti-Trump Republicans could dilute the president’s clout in primaries: “We beat him,” he said.
The highest-profile tests of Mr. Trump’s clout may come in two sparsely populated Western states, South Dakota and Wyoming, where the president has targeted a pair of G.O.P. leaders: John Thune, the second-ranking Senate Republican, and Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican.
“I suspect we will see a lot of that activity in the next couple of years out there for some of our members, myself included,” said Mr. Thune, adding that he and others would have to “play the hand you’re dealt.”
He may face less political peril than Ms. Cheney, who in voting to impeach Mr. Trump said that “there has never been a greater betrayal by a president.” The Wyoming Republican Party said it had been inundated with calls and messages from voters fuming about her decision.
Mr. Trump has talked to advisers about his contempt for Ms. Cheney in the days since the vote and expressed his glee about the backlash she is enduring in her home state.
Privately, Republican officials are concerned about possible campaigns for higher office by some of the high-profile backbenchers in the House who have railed against the election results and propagated fringe conspiracy theories. Among those figures are Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Andy Biggs of Arizona. All three states have Senate seats and governorships up for election in 2022.
Just as striking, a number of mainline conservatives in the House are speaking openly about how much Mr. Trump damaged himself in the aftermath of the election, culminating with his role in inspiring the riots.
“The day after the election, that question of leadership was unquestionably in one person’s hands, and each week that has gone past, he has limited himself, sadly, based off his own actions,” said Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, who predicted that rank-and-file voters would come to share his unease after they fully absorbed the Capitol riot.
I don’t make predictions so I have no idea how this is going to come out. A lot depends upon what happens to Trump legally and whether or not he decides that politics is the best way to save his tattered business and fortune. The lack of social media platforms and the loss of focus by the mainstream media that’s about to happen will have an effect as well. But there’s no doubt that the Republican death cult is still alive and well and isn’t going anywhere. Whether they will still have the numbers to dominate the GOP after Trump is still unknown.
They created this problem for themselves. They helped it happen and enjoyed watching their political rivals scream into the void, trying to warn the country about the threat. Now it’s come for them. Good luck.