People who follow political news are aware two big leadership fights are unfolding in the GOP, with a third lurking in the background.
The most visible of these is Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s struggle to be elected House speaker. He has only a 3-vote margin to work with, and 5 of his members openly opposed him. To bring them on board, he’d have to give in to at least some of their demands, pushing his caucus farther to the right. It didn’t work; when push came to shove, first 19 and then 20 of his members voted against him.
Next is the fight over who will chair the Republican National Committee (RNC), a seat currently held by Ronna McDaniel, who’s being challenged from farther right. That’s a problem because, as Raw Story explains (here), the party is “losing swing voters,” and that’s been costly. After Trump took over the party, they lost the House in 2018, the White House and Senate in 2020, and had disappointing 2022 midterm election results.
Harmeet Dhillon, a rival for McDaniel’s job, told the New York Times, “There may be many reasons for the various losses over the last several years, but what they all have in common is that they occurred under the current leadership, which has promised to change exactly nothing in the next two years. The most unifying thing that Ronna could do would be to move on.” The problem is Dhillon’s a Trump man and election denier who would push the party farther away from those swing voters.
And finally, the party is still hobbled by Trump’s grip on its voters, an albatross at the ballot box. The alternative isn’t much better: A divisive struggle between Trump and DeSantis, or some other up-and-comer, for the mantle of party leader.
Raw Story observes that “RNC committee member Bill Palatucci agrees that the Trumpism that has taken over the GOP has ‘done so much damage to this country and to this party. We have to acknowledge that 2022 was a disaster, and we need to do things differently. I would prefer and still hope there would be a different option.” He’s right, but that option has to be a shift back toward the center, if the GOP wants to woo back swing voters.
They’re incapable of it. First they purged the moderate Republicans, then the sane ones, until only the crazies were still there.
