This MSNBC report from the RNC confab this week lays out their essential problem. And they are all too cowardly and/or craven to do anything about it:
None of the officials assembled here for the Republican National Committee’s winter meetings are writing off former President Donald Trump. They all recognize his singular hold over the party’s electoral base.
But a distinct chasm is emerging between Trump’s obsessions and the issues many GOP operatives consider crucial to winning the midterm elections in November. Republican candidates need to make voters’ concerns a central focus, as opposed to Trump’s day-to-day attacks, RNC members suggested this week.
Few will put it quite so bluntly; they are loath to antagonize Trump and possibly drive off his hard-core followers. Yet in interviews, party officials showed little appetite for organizing the GOP around Trump’s grievances.
A winning message would emphasize inflation and parental rights, they said — not the 2020 election, which Trump falsely insists he won. Strengthening the party would require opening it up to new voters — not punishing Republicans who have disagreed with Trump, they added.
The sentiments echo those of local GOP leaders, who said late last year that they were ready to move beyond the 2020 election, even if Trump wasn’t. They wanted to put issues like border security, the Afghanistan troop withdrawal and education front and center.
Uh huh. Hows that working out?
A goal of the RNC winter meetings, members said, was for Republicans to project “unity.” Yet Trump remains a source of division that has spilled into the party’s gathering. One of his allies, RNC member David Bossie of Maryland, submitted a symbolic resolution that would call upon congressional Republicans to expel Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., from the House GOP conference. Both voted last year to impeach Trump.
The resolution was watered down to a censure Thursday amid criticism from some members that it undercut efforts to show the party tolerated dissenting views.
Ya think?
Good luck with that. The GOP is organized around the Big Lie and as long as Trump is still a living God for tens of millions of Republicans it’s going to remain that way. And the fact is that the Republican party doesn’t tolerate dissenting views when it comes to the Dear Leader. And they just proved it.
I’m glad Cheney and Kinsinger are speaking out. But they aren’t heroes. There is only one way to deal with what is happening to the GOP:
Cheney doesn’t have a home in the Democratic Party because she is an extreme right winger. But she could certainly leave the Party and become an Independent, as could Kinsinger. She might even get a few Democratic votes based upon her bold opposition to the GOP. But remaining in a fascist party in the hopes of outlasting the fascism is really just a way of enabling it.