The Chiral Red Wave Committee: Reply to Senator Cheney, the White House Ranking Adviser, and Democratic Senator Mitch McConnell

Cheney was the vice chairperson of the committee, and it was obvious that she belonged in it, since she had sacrificed her position in Republican leadership to stand up to Donald Trump. There were many others.

The leader of the Arizona House, who did not aid the former president in subverting the state’s election results, was a portrait of rectitude. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s chief of staff, defied attempts at intimidation to describe a president at once calculating and berserk.

“When you look back at what has come out through this committee’s work, the most striking fact is that all this evidence comes almost entirely from Republicans,” the committee’s Democratic chairman, Bennie Thompson, said on Thursday.

Even in the Senate, where control is at stake, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Senator Mike Lee of Utah sent a letter asking for a delay in leadership elections after former President Barack Obama urged Republicans to oust Senate leader McConnell.

There were multiple reasons why the red wave did not happen, they wrote. “We need to have serious discussions within our conference as to why and what we can do to improve our chances in 2024.”

Senator Marco Rubio gave up on the call after being re-elected. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas backed him up on his announcement that they need to make sure that those who want to lead us are genuinely committed to fighting for the priorities and values of the working Americans.

Senator Romney, the 2012 presidential nominee of the Republicans, made it clear that republican losses reflected the party’s embrace of rage and recrimination over policy proposals. He told Republicans to work together with Democrats to slow inflation by stopping spending on Medicare and Social Security, as well as opening legal immigration pathways and increasing domestic energy production.

Democratic Party Leaders Revisit Trump During the 2020 Midterm Election: Trump’s Obsessed State and the Battle for Their Exile

He said that pursuing pointless investigations, messaging bills, threats and government shutdowns would be more tempting than ever.

Representative Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican exiled by her party for her resolute opposition to Mr. Trump, called the midterm results “a clear victory for Team Normal,” but speaking on Friday afternoon at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, she signaled that Tuesday’s vote was “a step in the right direction.”

Donald Trump and the Republicans are under attack on Capitol Hill over their failure to take back the Senate and their strategy regarding their former president, who is still holding onto the party.

It is a topic of discussion, as to whether to engage more forcefully in the primary season to avoid the problems of 2022. In the next cycle, Republicans have a far more favorable Senate map, with Democrats defending 23 seats and Republicans defending 11 seats. Ohio, Montana and West Virginia are states that Trump won twice.

Hours after Trump’s hand-picked candidate, Herschel Walker, failed to pick up a Democratic seat, the blame game began in earnest – in large part directed at the former president. If the party establishment is going to root out unelectable Republicans in the upcoming election, then they must take a heavier hand. Others said the GOP needs to embrace early voting and wholly reject Trump’s demagoguery of mail-in voting, something that helped power Democratic victories.

The 2020 election denialism, which is central to his platform, and the party refusal to reject Donald Trump as their standard bearer ultimately did the Republicans in and will cost them again in future cycles.

“It’s just one more data point in an overwhelming body of data that the Trump obsession is very bad for Republicans, but normal Republicans are doing extremely well,” said retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, whose open seat was picked up by a Democrat.

The Republican soul-searching comes at a critical moment for Trump and the party. Senate GOP leaders are eager to move on from the Trump years and court candidates who have more moderate and mainstream appeal to the suburban voters who left them over their disdain for the former president.

They argue that the GOP needs to return to its bedrock as they are up against a hard-right group within the Republican party that controls the speakership and is pushing for a replacement in Kevin McCarthy.

And for Trump, the loss in Georgia is the latest in a growing list of political problems that has caused a new rift within his party and raised major questions about his viability as a 2024 presidential candidate. In the wake of his Mar-a-Lago dinner with prominent antisemites, and subsequent call for the “termination” of the US Constitution, many on Capitol Hill see the loss in Georgia – along with shortfalls in Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania – as the final breaking point between him and his party.

Graham added: “He’s still very popular in the party. people like his presidency They appreciate his fighting spirit. Can he win? but there’s beginning to be a sense.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, said the GOP tried to focus the 2022 midterms on President Joe Biden and Democratic policies they argued were making inflation worse and intensifying problems at the US-Mexico border. When Trump spoke for Republican Senate candidates in Nevada and Pennsylvania at the end of the campaign, it gave the Democrats hope that they would be able to win the majority in the Senate.

The current administration should have been a referendum on the policies of the administration, but thanks to Trump, the Democrats were able to turn it into a choice election. “So was he a factor? I don’t think there’s any question about that.”

“A lot of the candidates who had problems in these elections were running on the 2020 election being stolen and I don’t think independent voters were having it,” Thune said.

When I spoke with voters, they wanted to make sure that their votes wouldn’t be compromised, said Sen. Rick Scott. I think that was important.

What are the implications of Donald J. Scott’s decision to run for general election? The role of the primary, and of the future of the GOP

When asked if he was going to run to keep his seat, Tester said that he had to talk to his wife but that they would let you know when they made a decision.

But the potential GOP primary in his state could offer a preview of how Republicans will handle intraparty clashes going forward. The 2022 cycle when Scott decided not to engage in primary elections resulted in some wanting to eliminate candidates they think are unelectable.

“I think the fundamental lesson is it takes one kind of campaign to win a primary and it takes another kind of campaign to win a general election,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of GOP leadership. You’re going to lose if you try to run a general election without appealing to a bigger base of voters.

Scott said the GOP needs to focus on a good national message, after clashing with McConnell over the policy agenda.

Despite differing opinions about Trump, the Republican senators agreed that mail-in voting was something the party needs to do again, something that Trump has argued against.

He said that the impact of President Trump on the winner of the primary hasn’t worked out well. “Hopefully, we’ll recognize that his endorsement can be the kiss of death.”

Editor’s Note: Thomas Balcerski is the Ray Allen Billington Visiting Professor of U.S. History at Occidental College and a Long-term Fellow at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens. He wrote a book about James Buchanan and William Rufus King. He tweets about presidential history @tbalcerski. The opinions that are expressed are his own in this commentary. View more opinion on CNN.

The Case of Nathaniel P. Banks: An 1855-56 Compromise During the First Representation of the House of Representatives

The Republicans in the House could face similar calculations today. A large majority of Republicans want McCarthy, who has been a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, but if the prolonged battles of the 1850s are any guide, they would do better to select someone who is acceptable to the entirety of their caucus. Otherwise, they risk prolonging the balloting for days, weeks or even months.

While Kevin McCarthy has expressed his readiness to break the record of 1855-56, there is a second scenario from history that may be more likely – that from the last time the House failed to select a speaker on the first ballot.

In either instance, a compromise of some sort – whether by choosing a new candidate for speaker or by placating the splinter faction in some significant way – has usually been the result. There is a chance we will once again be living a version of these two scenarios.

Four years later, the House of Representatives was again divided, with a majority of Republicans looking to place Rep. John Sherman of Ohio in the chair. The Republicans tried, but failed, to use the plurality rule to end the debate. Sherman stepped aside and urged Republicans to support a new congressman from New Jersey, even though there was not a clear majority. After 44 ballots spanning eight weeks, Pennington was elected speaker.

In 1855, the race for speaker faced its most serious challenge yet. Without sufficient Democrats or former Whigs to reach a majority, a compromise candidate was found in Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts, a member of the nativist American Party (also called “Know Nothings”). The backers of a plurality resolution hoped that it would once again win the votes of competing segments, but the speaker defeated the Democratic challenger by a wide margin. Instead, Banks ultimately defeated Aiken on February 2, 1856.

In 1923, a group of western Republicans challenged the selection of the first choice candidate for speaker of the house. The progressives blamed the Party’s existing orthodoxy on the results of the 1922 election in which Republicans had seen their majority reduced, in which the party wanted to change the House’s rules to allow for more legislation to reach the floor

After a stalemate on eight ballots, an urgent meeting was held between the Republican majority leader Nicholas Longworth of Ohio and the radical group that included Rep. John M Nelson of Wisconsin. As a result, the House agreed to a number of procedural reforms and Gillett became speaker.

Good news; those days are back. It is like watching a wall of water roll backward and expose the political topography of the coastline after the failure of the red wave. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t belong to the Trump era due to his embarrassing struggle to claim the speakership. It’s the old world come again, the G.O.P. ancien regime with all its dysfunctions, stalemates and futility.

LOOKING FOR MOTHERS: A DEMANDED MOTHER THAT WILL NOT BE SOLD FOR THE POWER SUPPRESSED THEOREM

From left, Representatives Bob Good of Virginia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida applauded after Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania nominated Byron Donalds for speaker on Wednesday.

Mr. McCarthy had a monthslong effort to appease them that has fallen flat, raising questions about his voting abilities and whether they can ever be appeased.

Some have strongly suggested that they can, and the California Republican has agreed to many of their demands, including moves that would weaken the speakership considerably and make it exceedingly difficult to pass the most basic legislation, including bills needed to keep the government open and to avoid a default on the nation’s debt.

It appears particularly personal for Mr. Gaetz, who emerged from a closed-door meeting on Wednesday to declare the Republican leader “a desperate man” and pledge that he would “vote all night, all week, all month — and never for that person.” He voted for someone else on Wednesday.

Ms. Boebert has gone on television multiple times to defend her stance against Mr. McCarthy. She didn’t think Mr. McCarthy’s many concessions would bring him the votes to become speaker.

Bob Good of Virginia, a self-proclaimed “biblical conservative” and former administrator at Liberty University, made it clear that he would never be swayed by Mr. McCarthy’s side.

Some of Mr. McCarthy’s supporters have pointed out that the speaker is not the only person capable of making decisions regarding specific committees, even if some lawmakers are angling to lead them.

The former chief of staff to Ted Cruz, Representative Chip Roy of Texas, has used his procedural knowledge to force delays in House proceedings and called for an amendment to the chamber rules. A second-term Republican from Florida, Byron Donalds, emerged as a consensus pick for Mr. McCarthy’s opponents on Wednesday. Mr. Donalds has admitted he does not want the job and joined negotiations.

Mr. Donalds pointed to a provision that would allow a single lawmaker to force a vote on removing Mr. McCarthy from the speakership.

The chairman of the Freedom Caucus, who was involved in trying to get the acting attorney general removed from office, has also been involved in the talks. But on Thursday, he lashed out at Mr. McCarthy and his allies, accusing them of leaking details of their talks to reporters.

South Carolina’s Representative,Ralph Norman has been open to haggling. He replied that the devil was in the details when asked if he would be willing to vote for Mr. McCarthy.

Several of the lawmakers who have declined to back Mr. McCarthy have not answered questions about what would be needed to convince them to drop their objections, or avoided a grilling from conservative media outlets.

Lawmakers who voted for someone else other than Mr. McCarthy were led by Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana, and included members of Congress from Illinois and Maryland.

Some lawmakers want to vote on specific legislation, such as legislation that imposes term limits on lawmakers. The group has also demanded their own representatives to sit on the powerful Rules Committee, which controls what legislation receives votes and the terms for debate on the House floor.

What have you learned from the Republican Party before Donald Trump? How Congress members viewed Trump in 2016 and their views on the party’s ideology

Did you miss the Republican Party that existed before Donald Trump came along? ‌Are you nostalgic for the days of John Boehner battling Tea Party rebels over the debt ceiling or the fiscal cliff, or Ted Cruz’s “plan” to defund Obamacare? The good ol’ days when empty suits and aspiring lobbyists battled libertarians and cable-news personalities for the chance to advance an agenda of minimal austerity and business friendly tax cuts are what you pine for.

The American Conservative Union Chairman said that the reason why Kevin McCarthy had this problem was that the fiscal conservatives didn’t want to follow McConnell’s strategy. “They passed nearly a $2 trillion omnibus with winks and nods from Republicans because they don’t have the stomach to reduce federal spending.”

But the speaker fight, as well as the debt ceiling fight that has followed and the fight over leading the party, have raised some big questions about — well, are these Congress members so uniquely conservative?

“I am aware of fiscal conservatism, but then saying ‘okay, let’s push the country into debt default’ in what world is refusing to pay your credit cards considered a conservative act?” He told NPR what he had said.

Likewise, The New York Times’ resident right-leaning columnists David Brooks and Bret Stephens discussed how “the party and a radicalized conservative movement have left them feeling alienated.”

New York University professor and media critic Jay Rosen noted how Republicans “are frequently called ‘conservatives’ — and the most destructive among them the ‘most conservative’ — by reporters and editors who no longer know why they’re using the words they habitually use.”

There has been debate over the party’s ideology for quite some time. But that conversation arguably got louder when Donald Trump ran for president in 2015. NPR’s Scott Simon asked right-wing radio host Glenn Beck back then whether Trump was a conservative.

When we surveyed political activists in April of 2016 about their views on Trump, he had changed the way they viewed politics in general and Trump in particular, according to a study co-author.

Even those with conservative voting records (as measured by NOMINATE, a widely used measure of members’ ideologies based on their voting records) were seen as more moderate than their colleagues if they were also Trump critics.

Georgetown’s Hans Noel, a study co-author, adds that Trump reordered the party’s priorities, taking focus away from traditionally conservative principles.

“This sort of America first, nativist, ethnocentric, even racist kind of appeals where he’s like, ‘Let’s get out of NAFTA and let’s not let companies be woke,’ some of those completely fly in the face of a free market economy, free trade, Republican coalition,” Noel said.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/30/1151996068/republican-party-conservative-ideology-gop-trump

The Nomininate does not know how to distinguish between the Democratic and the Republican parties: The case of Rep. Jordan, Greene, and Steele

Yes, by one definition. When political scientists have used NOMINATE voting data to try to objectively measure the party’s conservatism, they have shown the entire GOP has grown more extreme in recent years — sizably more so than the Democratic Party.

The people who voted against McCarthy are largely conservative, but it’s not clear whether they are right or wrong. Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia (McCarthy supporters) are more “conservative” here than Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida (a vocal McCarthy opponent). And no matter what, McCarthy’s score still most definitely qualifies as “conservative” here.

Nominate does not really know how “conservatism” is defined. It picks up how much people vote together, not what topics they’re voting on or what they believe. If Congress passes more bills about trans issues and less about trade it will cause the score to be off.

So then we’re back to definitions. The executive director of America First Works is convinced that Trump’s ideology is conservative, and that he changed conservatism.

She said that it exposed the gap between the consultants and people and permanently altered people’s expectations. I think conservativism puts power back to the American people.

On that note, Hayek adds that she sees this whole debate over whether the party is conservative as an inside-the-beltway conversation — something average Americans aren’t concerned with.

The RNC didn’t change its platform in 2020 and Trump’s opponents are out of power now, according to former RNC chair Michael Steele.

“We don’t even have a platform. What do we mean by ourselves? We can’t even tell you what we believe,” he said. “You know, everybody talking about Liz Cheney is conservative — Liz is conservative on a lot of things, but Liz got herself kicked out of the party.”

“It’s whoever can play most effectively to the media wing of the Republican Party, who can anger the left, who promises to fight and inflict damage on the left more more aggressively.”