Monthly Archives: May 2021

The Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said on Monday he warned the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, about potential violence at the US Capitol on 6 January but McCarthy dismissed his concerns.

A few days before Jan 6 , our GOP members had a conference call, Kinzinger said on Twitter. I told Kevin that his words and our partys actions would lead to violence on January 6th. Kevin dismissively responded with, OK Adam. Operator, next question. And we got violence.

Five people died amid and after scenes of chaos at the Capitol, as supporters told by Donald Trump to fight like hell in his attempt to overturn his election defeat broke into the building, in some cases allegedly looking for lawmakers to kill.

On Monday, Kinzinger also said he had considered trying to force a vote of no-confidence in McCarthy after the insurrection.

I dont consider him to be speaking on behalf of the Republican party any more, Kinzinger told Bloomberg News. I actually thought the person that should have their leadership challenged was Kevin McCarthy after 6 January because thats why this all happened.

Kinzinger said he abandoned such plans to keep the focus on the impeachment vote against Trump which followed the insurrection. Ten House Republicans voted with Democrats to impeach Trump for inciting the riot but only seven Republican senators followed, too few to return a guilty verdict.

McCarthy did not immediately comment.

Kinzinger has been outspoken in his criticism of Trump and others peddling the big lie that there was widespread fraud in the presidential election.

But like most of his party McCarthy has sided with a former president whose grip on the party seems set to strengthen this week with the ejection from leadership of Liz Cheney, a Wyoming conservative who has also spoken against him.

Kinzinger has been one of Cheneys few Republican defenders in Congress. Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: Liz is the one playing defense, for what? Whats she playing defense for? Telling the truth and not ransacking the Capitol on 6 January?

If you think about it from the forest, its ludicrous that shes having to defend herself. Thats insane, but thats where we are.

Speaking to CBS News on Sunday, Kinzinger said his party was going to get rid of Liz Cheney because theyd much rather pretend that the conspiracy is either real or not confront it than to actually confront it and maybe have to take the temporary licks to save this party and the long-term [future] of this country.

McCarthy told Fox Business he was endorsing the New York representative Elise Stefanik to replace Cheney in a position in leadership. As conference chair, you have one of the most critical jobs as a messenger going forward.

Trump weighed in on Monday, issuing a statement in which he said: The House GOP has a massive opportunity to upgrade this week from warmonger Liz Cheney to gifted communicator Elise Stefanik.

The warmonger jibe was in part aimed at Cheneys father, the former vice-president Dick Cheney, one of the architects of the Iraq war.

We need someone in leadership who has experience flipping districts from blue to red as we approach the important 2022 midterms, Trump added, and thats Elise! She knows how to win, which is what we need!

Trump formally endorsed Stefanik last week. In congressional votes to recognize electoral college results, held in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, Stefanik objected to results from Pennsylvania. She did not object to results from Arizona, as many other Republicans did.

Before the votes, she indicated plans to object to results in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. No senator supported challenges to results from those states, however, so none were mounted.

Cheney is set to be replaced in a closed vote on Wednesday. On Sunday, Kinzinger also compared the trajectory of his party to the sinking of the Titanic, saying leaders were not acting responsibly.

Were like in the middle of this slow sink, he said. We have a band playing on the deck, telling everybody its fine, and meanwhile as Ive said, Donald Trump is running around trying to find womens clothing to get on the first lifeboat.

I think theres a few of us saying, Guys, this is not good, not just for the future of the party, but this is not good for the future of this country.

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Republican says party leader dismissed his warnings of Capitol violence - The Guardian

Former Sen. Jeff FlakeJeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeThe Hill's 12:30 Report - Presented by Facebook - Republican reactions to Cheney's removal Flake: No greater offense than honesty in today's Republican Party Cheney set to be face of anti-Trump GOP MORE (R-Ariz.) is calling out GOP lawmakers for their plan to oust Rep. Liz CheneyElizabeth (Liz) Lynn CheneyOvernight Defense: Military sexual assault reform bill has votes to pass in Senate l First active duty service member arrested over Jan. 6 riot l Israeli troops attack Gaza Strip Cheney: Fox News has 'a particular obligation' to refute election fraud claims The Memo: What now for anti-Trump Republicans? MORE (R-Wyo.) from the partys leadership in the House, arguing that today there is no greater offense than honesty among Republicans.

On Wednesday, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) will most likely lose her leadership post within the House Republican Conference, not because she has been untruthful. Rather, she will lose her position because she is refusing to play her assigned role in propagating the 'big lie' that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald TrumpDonald TrumpProject Veritas surveilled government officials to expose anti-Trump sentiments: report Cheney: Fox News has 'a particular obligation' to refute election fraud claims The Memo: What now for anti-Trump Republicans? MORE, Flake wrote in an op-ed published in The Washington Post.

Cheney is more dedicated to the long-term health of our constitutional system than she is to assuaging the former presidents shattered ego, and for her integrity she may well pay with her career, he continued.

Flake added: No, this is not the plot of a movie set in an asylum but rather your contemporary Republican Party, where today there is no greater offense than honesty.

House Republicans are expected to meet behind closed doors on Wednesday morning and vote to remove Cheney from her role as the GOP conference chair, the third-ranking position in their leadership.

Every one of us who has sworn the oath must act to prevent the unraveling of our democracy. This is not about policy. This is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans,"Cheneytold her colleagues in a floor speechlate Tuesday.

Flake, who represented Arizona in the upper chamber from 2013 to 2019, criticized some Republicans in the op-ed for a celebration of the unwise and the untrue, citing conspiracy theories that former President Obama was not born in the U.S. and more.

I had hoped that, over time, my Republican constituents would feel differently about the former president, or at least value a Republican who pushed back, and that I could stand for reelection in 2018 with a reasonable chance of surviving a Republican primary, Flake wrote.

It soon became apparent that Republican voters wanted someone who was all in with a president that I increasingly saw as a danger to the republic. That could not be me, so I spoke out instead and didnt stand for reelection, headded noting that history keeps the score, not Kevin McCarthyKevin McCarthyRoy to challenge Stefanik for Cheney's old position Stefanik shake-up jump-starts early jockeying for committee posts Why Cheney was toppled, and what it says about the GOP and Trump's claims MORE or Elise StefanikElise Marie StefanikThe Memo: What now for anti-Trump Republicans? Roy to challenge Stefanik for Cheney's old position Stefanik shake-up jump-starts early jockeying for committee posts MORE.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sunday signaled his support publicly for the first time for Rep. Elise Stefaniks (R-N.Y.) bid to replace Chaney.

It is elementary to have to say this, but we did not become a great nation by believing or espousing nonsense, or by embracing lunacy, Flake wrote. And if my party continues down this path, we will not be fit to govern.

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Flake: No greater offense than honesty in today's Republican Party | TheHill - The Hill

Welcome to FiveThirtyEights politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Were still more than a year away from the 2022 midterm elections, which means it will be a while before we should take those general election polls too seriously. But with a number of elections underway in 2021, not to mention a number of special elections, its worth kicking off the conversation around what we do and dont know about Republicans and Democrats odds headed into the midterms.

Lets start big picture. The longstanding conventional wisdom is that midterm elections generally go well for the party thats not in the White House. Case in point: Since 1946, the presidents party has lost, on average, 27 House seats.

What are our initial thoughts? Is the starting assumption that Republicans should have a good year in 2022?

alex (Alex Samuels, politics reporter): Yes, and heres why: 2022 will be the first federal election after the House map(s) are redrawn. And because Democrats fell short of their 2020 expectations in state legislative races, Republicans have the opportunity to redraw congressional maps that are much more clearly in their favor. On top of that, Republicans are already campaigning on the cost and magnitude of President Bidens policy plans to inspire a backlash from voters.

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Simply put, as that chart above shows, the expectation is that Democrats, as the party in the White House, will lose seats in the House.

And because Democrats have such a narrow lead in that chamber, that would mean the GOP is favored to take it. Now, because only one-third of the Senate is up every two years, its not a truly national election the way the House is, so the story there is more complicated.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): What they said!

alex: lol

That said, I think Democrats might find some success campaigning on Bidens accomplishments from his first 100 days: the vaccine rollout and the coronavirus stimulus funding, specifically. But that might not be enough to save Democrats from a midterm shellacking.

nrakich: Yeah, Democrats are obviously hoping they can buck the trend and point to exceptions like Republicans gaining seats in 2002 as evidence that its possible. But George W. Bush was very popular in 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11: According to a retrospective FiveThirtyEight average of polls at the time, he had a 62 percent approval rating and 29 percent disapproval rating on Election Day 2002.

And in this era of polarization where presidential approval ratings are stuck in a very narrow band its hard to imagine Biden ever reaching that level of popularity.

sarah: Were getting ahead of ourselves with the Senate, Geoffrey! Well talk about that more in a minute. But it sounds like our starting point is that 2022 should, in theory, favor Republicans?

That makes sense given the historical record, but to push back on that just a little there are instances when the presidents party didnt do that poorly. For instance, in 1990, when George H.W. Bush was president, Republicans lost eight seats in the House and one seat in the Senate which, as Politifact wrote, was a setback but not exactly a shellacking. Similarly, in 1998, when Bill Clinton was president, Democrats actually picked up five seats in the House and broke even in the Senate. Republicans still controlled both chambers, but the fact that Democrats didnt really lose ground was notable nonetheless.

So is it possible that Democrats wont have that bad of a year?

geoffrey.skelley: As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, Biden and his team are clearly banking on an economic revival that will buoy his ratings and Democratic fortunes in the midterm.

After all, the times when the presidents party avoided losing much ground in the House or even gained a little came when the incumbent president was very popular. Its going to be hard, as Nathaniel said, for Biden to be at or above 60 percent approval when things are so polarized hes at about 54 percent right now, according to FiveThirtyEights tracker but if he can hang out above 50 percent, that could help Democrats minimize their losses in the House.

alex: And at this point, Democrats seem to be more excited than Republicans about voting in the midterms, per Morning Consult. Their April poll found that 81 percent of Democrats were at least somewhat enthusiastic about voting in the 2022 midterms, compared to 72 percent of Republicans. So not a huge difference, but still interesting.

sarah: What about midterm turnout more broadly? Is there any reason to think that Republicans or Democrats hold an advantage here?

geoffrey.skelley: As a general rule, midterm elections are influenced a lot by what political scientists call differential turnout; that is, your average member of the party thats not in the White House is more likely to turn out than the average member of the presidents party.

In other words, we can probably expect Republican turnout to be up compared to 2018, and Democratic turnout to be down. However, how much more or less is the real question.

nrakich: Some analysts point to the fact that college-educated white voters, who are pretty reliable midterm voters, used to vote Republican but now vote Democratic. And while its true that Democrats have made gains with these voters in recent elections, I think its overstating things to say that will turn midterms into Democratic-friendly environments.

According to a recent report by the Democratic data firm Catalist, college-educated white voters only voted for Biden 54 percent to 46 percent (based on the two-party vote). In other words, theyre still a swing demographic, not part of the Democratic base (yet).

sarah: That certainly seems to be the big question heading into 2022, Nathaniel.

geoffrey.skelley: We shouldnt discount the role persuasion plays in midterm elections, either. Catalists 2018 midterm analysis speaking of them noted that Democrats won over some voters in 2018 who leaned Republican in 2016.

So its possible that if conditions are relatively favorable for Democrats, that might persuade some voters to stick with them and turn out. Alternatively, the GOP might be able to win over some Biden voters if they dont feel good about the status quo.

sarah: What else should we be factoring in to understand the national environment?

nrakich: The two indicators I always look at are polls of the generic congressional ballot (in other words, polls that ask, Would you vote for a Democrat or Republican for Congress?) and special election results (specifically, how much they deviate from a districts base partisanship).

And right now, those indicators point to a neutral or slightly Democratic-leaning environment. We dont have a generic-ballot polling average yet, but the few polls we do have tend to put Democrats up by single digits.

My informal tracking of special election results so far about two dozen mostly legislative elections, so not a huge sample size shows that neither party is significantly overperforming its 2016 presidential performance.

But there is still plenty of time for the national environment to change. In the 2010 election cycle (which, of course, was a great one for Republicans), Republicans didnt take the lead in generic-ballot polling until December 2009.

sarah: But uh the generic ballot polls were really off in 2020. How should we factor that in when thinking about 2022?

As former FiveThirtyEighter Harry Enten argued back in April, we might read Democrats current lead in the generic ballot as a slight GOP advantage, given how much polls underestimated Republicans in 2020.

nrakich: Yeah, Sarah, I think its fair to mentally subtract a few points from Democrats on the generic ballot polls. That would put them right in line with the special-election results so far, which show a more neutral environment.

That said, the generic-ballot polls were spot on in 2018. Our average gave Democrats an 8.7-point lead on Election Day, and they won the national House popular vote by 8.6 points. And 2022, as a midterm year, has more in common with 2018 than 2020.

geoffrey.skelley: Thats right, generic ballot polls tend to be more accurate in midterm elections than in presidential ones.

FiveThirtyEights historical generic ballot polling average on Election Day vs. the actual national popular vote for the U.S. House of Representatives, 1996 to 2020

FiveThirtyEights polling averages are calculated retroactively for years prior to 2018.

Sources: The Cook Political Report, Polls, U.S. House of Representatives

That said, even if its a somewhat neutral environment in 2022 perhaps a best-case scenario for Democrats an evenly divided national popular vote would likely produce a GOP House majority. Why? Even though Biden won the national popular vote by about 4.5 points in 2020, the median House seat only went for him by 2.4 points. Heading into 2022, that bias may only grow, considering that Republicans will draw new congressional lines in a lot more states than Democrats.

alex: Nathaniel has done a great job writing about this, but I think the new voting laws (both the restrictive ones and the expansive ones) should be a factor we examine, too.

While its hard to determine whether these bills will have some sort of partisan impact, its also very possible that young voters and voters of color have a bigger incentive to turn out to vote because of these bills.

nrakich: Yeah, Alex, itll be really interesting to see whether those laws do what they are ostensibly intended to do and depress Democratic turnout or whether they make Democrats more fired up to vote.

sarah: What about the Senate? Republicans must defend more seats than Democrats in 2022, but the Senate is often a more complicated story. Remember, the House experienced a blue wave in 2018, but the Senate actually got redder. Any sense of what to expect this year?

alex: Im less clear on Republicans prospects for taking back the Senate, but I am more inclined to say Democrats can hold onto their narrow majority there.

A piece from The Washington Post in March made the case that less than a dozen seats are really in play, and of those, there are more opportunities for Democratic pickups. For example, the North Carolina and Pennsylvania seats (both previously held by Republicans) might be easier grabs next year since their 2020 margins were so close.

And it could be hard for Republicans to flip the four Democratic seats that are considered competitive Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Nevada. Biden won New Hampshire by 7 points last year! Nevada is also becoming more reliably blue (although it didnt move that much in 2020).

All thats to say, Democrats may really need to go all-in defending just two seats: Georgia (Sen. Raphael Warnocks seat) and Arizona (Sen. Mark Kellys seat).

nrakich: Yeah, this is a big caveat to all the doom and gloom for Democrats. While there is a clear trend of the presidents party losing seats in the House, the pattern isnt as consistent for the Senate.

The presidential partys performance in midterm elections, 1946-2018

2018 change includes the special election result for North Carolinas 9th Congressional District

Seat change calculated by how many seats the presidential party gained or lost based on the number of seats it held on Election Day. Seat vacancies were assigned to the previous party. Party switches after an election were not included in the calculations.

Source: BROOKINGS, GREG GIROUX, MICHAEL DUBIN, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, U.S. SENATE, UVA CENTER FOR POLITICS, VOTEVIEW.ORG

And the Class III Senate map (the class of senators who will be up for election in 2022) is arguably the most favorable one for Democrats, in terms of presenting opportunities to flip Republican-held seats. There are two Republican-held seats on the ballot in states that Biden carried (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), and no Democratic-held seats in states that Trump carried.

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, the makeup of the Senate classes matters a great deal and which party is defending which seats. One reason the GOP gained seats in 2018 was because it was able to pick off Democrats in red states like Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota. So its possible Democrats could find gains in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, or, if things really go their way, perhaps a state that Biden only lost narrowly like Florida or North Carolina.

But one problem for Democrats is that they dont have the same set of juicy targets the GOP did in 2018 with states like Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota clearly red states with Democratic senators. By contrast, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin only went for Biden by around 1 point, and there arent really any clearly blue states with Republican senators up in 2022 (in fact, Sen. Susan Collinss seat in Maine is the only other seat the GOP holds in a Democratic-leaning state, and she won reelection in 2020).

Democrats also hold an array of seats that wont be easy to defend, such as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire. Its definitely plausible that Democrats successfully defend some of them, but defending all of them, or defending most of them while picking up Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, is a tall order.

sarah: Yeah, Democrats might not have their worst Senate map in 2022, but it will by no means be easy, and how they fare will have a lot to do with the national environment. And as we touched on earlier, Bidens overall approval rating will also make a big difference in Democrats midterm chances.

nrakich: Yeah, if the national environment is even a bit Republican-leaning, that could be enough to allow solid Republican recruits to flip even Nevada and New Hampshire. And then it wouldnt even matter if Democrats win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

One thing is for sure, though whichever party wins the Senate will have only a narrow majority, so I think were stuck in this era of moderates like Sens. Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski controlling every bills fate for at least a while longer.

sarah: Lets talk about big picture strategy, then, and where that leaves us moving forward. Its still early and far too easy to prescribe election narratives that arent grounded in anything, but one gambit the Republican Party seems to be making at this point is that attacking the Democratic Party for being too progressive or woke will help them win.

What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?

alex: Im not sure if itll work, but there is a debate in political science right now about the extent to which race-based messaging reduces support for certain policy ideas. In fact, a recent study from Yale political scientists Micah English and Josh Kalla found that highlighting the benefits of progressive policies for racial minorities actually decreases support for them overall, and this was especially true for white respondents. To prove this, the pair conducted an online survey of six progressive policy ideas increasing the minimum wage to $15, forgiving $50,000 in student loan debt, affordable housing, the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, decriminalizing marijuana and erasing prior convictions and asked randomly assigned participants to read about them in either a neutral, race-based, class-based and race-plus-class frame. They found that the class framing was most successful in increasing support for policies across racial and political groups. So Im sure Republicans will try and use this to their advantage given their current emphasis on tackling cancel culture.

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Will 2022 Be A Good Year For Republicans? - FiveThirtyEight

Georgias new voting restrictions dominated headlines in March, for numerous reasons: It was one of the closest states in last years presidential election and the focus of former President Donald Trumps pressure campaign to get Republicans to overturn the results; the legislation was written in such a way as to have a disproportionate impact on voters of color; and the law inspired an unusual amount of backlash from corporate America, even spurring Major League Baseball to move its All-Star Game out of the state.

But Georgia is hardly the only state thats made it harder to vote this year. Republican lawmakers have now enacted new voting restrictions in a total of 11 states Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.

As we wrote in March, Republican state legislators inspired by Trumps baseless claims of voter fraud have introduced hundreds of bills this year that would make it harder to vote. Based on the latest data from the Brennan Center for Justice and our own research, at least 404 voting-restriction bills have now been introduced in 48 state legislatures. Whats more, nearly 90 percent of them were sponsored primarily or entirely by Republicans.

Of course, not all of those bills will pass. Of those 404 bills, we count 179 that are already dead either because they were voted down or werent passed before a key deadline. Another 137 bills have not yet progressed beyond the committee stage, and at this point, that inaction bodes poorly for their chances of passage. On the other hand, 63 bills are still worth watching, having passed at least one step of the legislative process (with those that have passed two chambers closer to passage than those that have just passed committee). That leaves 25 bills that are already law (back in March, this number was only six); four states have even enacted multiple such laws.

The highest-profile voting restriction that has been enacted since Georgias is Senate Bill 90 in Florida. Among other things, the law requires proof of identity for absentee voting, restricts ballot drop boxes to early-voting sites or election offices (where they can only be used if a staff member is physically present), limits how many absentee ballots a person can deliver for non-family members, and makes absentee-ballot requests good for only one election cycle (previously, they were good for two cycles). Critics also fear that the law could allow Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to stack local election boards with political cronies and intimidate campaigns from giving food and water to voters within 150 feet of a polling place (based on the laws expanded definition of vote solicitation). DeSantis also signed the bill last Thursday at a signing ceremony that was closed to all members of the press except Fox News, contributing to the partisan acrimony over the legislation.

Of course, as in Georgia, its not clear whether Floridas new law will actually boost Republicans chances of winning elections in the perennially competitive state. By making it less easy to vote absentee, the law discourages a voting method that was used overwhelmingly by Democrats in 2020 but was also a source of Republican strength in elections before that.

Other new voting restrictions havent gotten as much attention as Florida and Georgia, but they could still affect voting for millions of people and underscore just how widespread Republicans push to tighten voting laws has been.

In less than five months, 25 new voting restrictions have already been enacted in 2021. Thats a notable uptick from recent years: The Brennan Center tracked only 14 voting restrictions that became law in 2019 and 2020 combined. Its likely, too, that that number will continue to grow. Republicans are expected to add even more laws restricting voting access to the books in the coming months with an omnibus bill in Texas likely to be the next voting restriction to experience the glare of the national spotlight. Stay tuned as we continue to track these bills and explore their implications.

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Where Republicans Have Made It Harder To Vote (So Far) - FiveThirtyEight

Hurd: Heres the secret sauce: EveryoneI dont care what country you come from, Latino, African Americanyou care about putting food on your table, a roof over your head, and making sure that the people you love are healthy and happy. When you talk about those issues, that's going to resonate.

Too often, we get caught up in the conversations going on on social media and cable news. When I went into these communities to do town halls, nobody brought up those issues on the chyron at the bottom of the newscast. They cared about making sure their kids were going to be able to be competitive and go to college. They wanted to make sure that the industry they're working in was going to survive. They cared about having good roads. They cared about border securityfor people who live on the border, its called public safety.

Green: In Texas, the state party didnt invest money in getting the census distributed until really late in the game. And at the national level, the Trump administration attempted to insert a citizenship question, which a lot of people thought was an effort to try to disincentivize Latinos from answering the survey. But if what youre saying is true, counting Latinos is potentially going to be part of Republican success in Texas, not a deficit. I wonder if you think the Republican Party hamstrung itself.

Hurd: Theres folks who believe that more people voting or engaged in civic society is going to be bad. If youre afraid of new voters, then to me that's a sign that you need to rethink your strategy.

Read: History will judge the complicit

Green: At the national level, do you think the Republican Party has done a good job of making it clear that it doesnt want to be mostly a white party?

Hurd: We have to be better. We cant be seen as being jerks, racists, misogynists, or homophobes. We oftentimes describe the Republican Party as only a handful of national figures. The Republican Party is the people who vote. We are the party thats going to help everybody move up the economic ladder. And that work is made more difficult by some individuals within the party.

Green: Are you frustrated that the oxygen gets sucked up by people like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who have become these figureheads for what the new Republican Party looks like?

Hurd: Yes, when oxygen on these national conversations gets sucked up on things, its hard, because we are in a new cold war with the Chinese government. Their GDP is going to be larger than the United States of Americas. And they have made it clear that they are trying to surpass the United States as a sole hegemon in the world. These are the conversations that we should be having on a national scale.

We have some serious, generationally defining challenges that we have to address, and these politics are getting in the way of having real discourse. Thats where I get frustrated.

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Will Hurd on the Future of the Republican Party - The Atlantic

The co-hosts of the conservative podcast "Ruthless" urged Republicans not to "take the bait" when it comes to the Liz Cheney drama and re-litigating the 2020 presidential election.

Josh Holmes argued on Thursday that any Republican who is off-message from the various crises that have emerged under the Biden administration from the growing inflation, the surge at the border, the gas shortage to the escalating Israel-Gaza conflict, "you're letting your country down."

Comfortably Smug insisted that the only people who want to talk about the Wyoming representative and the events following the November election are "the left."

RUTHLESS PODCAST SAYS MEDIA USES LIZ CHENEY TO PUSH 'GOP CIVIL WAR' NARRATIVE: CNN NEEDS TO FILL AIRWAVES

They then played a clip from "Pod Save America" where former Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer said, "I want to have- the Democrats have a narrative about the Republicans can we get Republican turnout among particularly from rural and exuberant areas from these White, non-college voters down to Romney levels instead of Trump levels. If we get to Romney levels and we hold onto our gains with suburban voters and others, we will keep the House and we will take the Senate."

"They tell you exactly what they want to do," co-host Michael Duncan reacted. "Create a Dem narrative that divides Republicans and gets rural, working-class White voters to stay home in the midterms."

The co-hosts slammed Pfeiffer's voter suppression rhetoric, saying "imagine" if a Republican said that about wanting to suppress the turnout of Black voters, which they said would be "racist."

"It's also a signal to his friends in the media, right?" Duncan said. "It's keep the drumbeat going, divide these Republicans, get the Trump voters, you know, disillusioned with the Republican Party, lets keep them home.'"

"To bring this full circle I don't care if you're sitting in your living room with your family, with your lib relative or you're a member of Congress, a senator or a leader of one of the parties," Holmes chimed in. "When you are asked about 'what this says about the Republican Party' or can you weigh in and tell us if you think there is a legitimate election in 2020, reject the premise. Tell'em to f--- off. That's not what's happening here!"

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Holmes continued, "We've got unbelievable, unbelievable problems out there. There are people waiting in gas lines- literally, that's happening! This is 1979, we're watching Jimmy Carter's America descend on us right now and we're concerned about whether or not has a conference leadership position? C'mon!"

Smug urged Republicans to "listen to the base" since the media is "doing everything they can to cover up that message and divide and conquer."

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Ruthless podcast to Republicans: If the media asks you about Liz Cheney, 2020 election, tell'em to 'f--- off' - Fox News

America prefers to look forward rather than back. Were a land of second acts. We move on.

This can be a strength. We dont get bogged down in outmoded traditions, old grudges, obsolete ways of thinking. We constantly reinvent. We love innovation and disruption.

The downside is a tendency toward collective amnesia about what weve been through, and a corresponding reluctance to do anything about it or hold anyone accountable.

Now, with Covid receding and the economy starting to rebound and the 2020 election and the attack on the Capitol behind us the future looks bright.

But at the risk of being the skunk at the picnic, let me remind you: we have lost more than 580,000 people to Covid-19. One big reason that number is so high is our former president lied about the virus and ordered his administration to minimize its danger.

Donald Trump also lied about the results of the last election. And then you remember, dont you? he tried to overturn the results.

Trump twisted the arms of state election officials. He held a rally to stop Congress from certifying the election, followed by the violent attack on the Capitol. Five people died. Senators and representatives could have been slaughtered.

Several Republican members of Congress encouraged the attempted coup by joining him in the big lie and refusing to certify the election.

This was just over four months ago, yet we seem to be doing everything we can to blot it out of our memory.

Last Tuesday, the Washington Post hosted a live video chat with the Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley, a ringleader in the attempt to overturn the results of the election. Hawley had even made a fist-pump gesture toward the mob at the Capitol before the attack.

But the Post billed the interview as being about Hawleys new book on the tyranny of big tech. It even posted a biography of Hawley that made no mention of Hawleys sedition, referring instead to his supposed reputation for taking on the big and the powerful to protect Missouri workers and as a fierce defender of the constitution.

Last week, CBS This Morning interviewed the Florida Republican Rick Scott, another of the senators who tried to overturn the election by not certifying the results. But there was no mention of his sedition. The CBS interviewer confined his questions to Bidens spending plans, which Scott unsurprisingly opposed.

Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson and the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, also repeatedly appear on major news programs without being questioned about their attempts to undo the results of the election.

What possible excuse is there for booking them if they have not publicly retracted their election lies? If they must appear, they should be asked if they continue to deny the election results and precisely why.

Pretending nothing happened promotes Americas amnesia, which invites more attempts to distort the truth.

On Monday, Trump issued a proclamation seeking to co-opt the language of those criticizing his falsehoods. The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as the BIG LIE! he wrote, repeating his claims that the 2020 election was stolen and that President Biden is illegitimate. Most Republican voters believe him.

Trumps big lie is being used by Republican state legislatures to justify new laws that restrict voting. On Thursday, hours after Florida installed new voting restrictions, Texass Republican-led legislature pushed ahead with its own bill that would make it one of the hardest states in which to cast a ballot.

The Republican-controlled Arizona senate is mounting a private recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa county farming out 2.1m ballots to GOP partisans, including at least one who participated in the 6 January raid on the Capitol.

The Republican party is about to purge one of its leaders, the Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, for telling the truth.

It is natural to want to put all this unpleasantness behind us. We are finally turning the corner on the pandemic and the economy. Why look back to the trauma of the 2020 election?

But we cannot put it behind us. Trumps big lie and all that it has provoked are still with us. If we forget what has occurred, the trauma will return, perhaps in even more terrifying form.

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Republicans tried to overturn the election. We cant just forget that - The Guardian

When the tea party movement emerged in 2009, Republican leaders assumed they could humor its followers and capture their intensity, while keeping them under control.

They were wrong. Instead, the partys leaders were consumed by the movement they tried to corral, and by the grass-roots anger they thought they could use to their advantage.

Tea party energy helped propel Republicans into a House majority and make John Boehner the speaker of the Houseyet he was never able to contain the movement he was riding and eventually resigned in frustration.

The task of riding herd over the tea party caucus fell to three younger House leaders, who fashioned themselves as the Young Guns: Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy. Mr. Ryan became Speaker but he, too, eventually left Congress in frustration. Mr. Cantor was beaten in a Republican primary by a tea party upstart.

That left Mr. McCarthy, who today is the top House Republican. And he is, to some extent, struggling to manage an angry army of insurrectionists within his own party, this time in the form of former President Donald Trump and his followers.

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As With the Tea Party, Republican Leaders Try to Control a Rebel Army - The Wall Street Journal

Shortly after signing House Bill 1775, Governor Kevin Stitt released this video on Twitter explaining why he signed the bill into law. Oklahoman

Idaho's governor last week signed into law a bill whose purpose, at face value, is noncontroversial. The lawprohibits public schools and colleges from teaching that "any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior."

The catch?Baked into the legislation is an effort to stamp out conversations about race and equity. A dozen or so states including Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and West Virginia have introduced bills that would prohibit schools from teaching "divisive," "racist" or "sexist" concepts.

Critics warn these measures are part of a larger movement to draw Americas culture wars into classrooms. And this war centers on a once-obscure legal theory about how the legacy of slavery continues to permeateAmerican society today.

Teachers from Capital City Public Charter School in Northwest Washington and others decorate their school fence with yellow paper to spell the words Black Lives Matter on June 18, 2020. In an apparent backlash against the teaching of anti-racism lessons in schools, proposed legislation has cropped up in at least a dozen states attacking a once obscure legal premise critical race theory, which questions how the legacy of slavery still affects American society today.(Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP)

Critical race theory goes beyond advocating for civil rights or banning discrimination. Proponents see it as a framework to examine how the taint of racism still affects Black Americans and other people of colorin matters ranging from who gets bank loans and admissioninto elite universitiesto how suspects are treated by police.

Detractors dismiss critical race theory as a method for teaching kids to hate their country or to promote public school wokeness.

But while such talking points play well among conservative media circles, political and legal experts contend they obscure more meaningful discussion about the role systemic racism plays in the American experience.

The bills seeking to prohibit the instruction of divisive concepts seldom mention critical race theory directly, but in many cases legislators have cited it as a driving force behind the measures.

Rhode Island state Rep. Patricia Morgan said critical race theory must be stopped while promoting a bill that purports to be about prohibiting the teaching of divisive concepts that can make individuals feel distress on account of their race or sex.(Photo: Patrick Anderson, Kris Craig, The Providence Journ)

In an April Facebook post promoting a billin Rhode Island that has since stalled in committee,state Rep. Patricia Morgan, a co-sponsor,wrote, "Critical Race Theory must be stopped." After quoting Martin Luther King Jr., she went on to say,"Our state must reject the neo-racism and race-shaming of Critical Race Theory. We have no time to waste in rooting out this disturbing, divisive and false ideology."

While discussing a new civics education initiative in Florida's public schools, Gov. Ron DeSantissaid, "Theres no room in our classrooms for things like critical race theory. Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayermoney."

While promoting a new civics initiative, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called out critical race theory as teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other.(Photo: Andrew West/The News-Press Part of the USA Today Network, The News-Press)

Overall, such legislation would better enable opponents to ensure that so-called ideology doesn't fester in institutions such as schools, Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, has said in his newsletter. "Our movement to abolish critical race theory indoctrination in public schools," he wrote in one issue,"has caught fire."

The bills' language reflects many conservatives' view that critical race theory portrays the United States as a racist country, that certain people are "inherently oppressive" and that those people are accountable for the sins committed by their predecessors. In their interpretation, the theory seeks to make particular individuals namely, white people feel uncomfortable and guilty abouttheir race.

This was the premise of former President Donald Trump's executive order banning diversity trainings for federal workers a directive that garnered lawsuits, wasblocked by a federal judge and was eventually rescinded by President Joe Biden.

"They were teaching people that our country is a horrible place, its a racist place," Trump said during the first presidential debate. "And they were teaching people to hate our country."

The ideas behind critical race theory were developed in the 1970s by a group of legal scholars who became interested in how anti-discrimination law wasnt addressing the persistent inequalities they were seeing, said Adrienne Dixson,a professor of critical race theory and education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The recent wave of attention on critical race theory didnt start with Trump but rather became crystalized during his administration, Dixson said. Former President Barack Obama's election "was shocking and traumatic for people who always imagined the U.S. as a white nation, she added, and since then, theres been a profound ignorance about what critical race theory really is.

Adrienne Dixson is a professor of education policy and critical race theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign(Photo: Adrienne Dixson)

Interest in the topic has grown over the past year, fueled in partbyBlack Lives Matter activism following the murder ofGeorge Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer.Google search trends show a spike this spring.

In some states, political debates have erupted over the role and design of racial justice-minded education.In March, activistslaunched a national,largely conservativegrassroots organization called Parents Defending Education aimed at resisting what members believe areactivists and ideologues "pumping divisive, polarizing ideas into classrooms," according to the group's literature.

Much of the group's advocacy focuses on challenging curriculabased on the 1619 Project,a series of stories by The New York Timesin 2019 that frames U.S. history within the context of slavery. (A separate series of state bills have also sought topunish schools for incorporating the project into lesson plans.)

A recent poll by Parents Defending Educationfoundmore than two-thirds of respondents "opposed schools teaching that America was founded on racism and is structurally racist." Close to 3 in4respondents said schools shouldn't teach students that white people are inherently privileged and people of colorinherently oppressed.

The group has taken to filingfederal civil rights complaints against districts that say structural racism plays a role in schools. The complaintsin cities such as Columbus, Ohio;Hopkins, Minnesota;Webster Groves, Missouri; and Hillsborough, North Carolina, contend such admissions amount to districts violatingfederal anti-discrimination law, which should void theirfederal funding.

"We would like the Department of Education to investigate these incidents in order to determine whether these allegationsare true and if so, how best to remedy the situation to prevent future discrimination by that district," Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, told USA TODAY in March.

Educators who study critical race theory see value in teaching about America's history with slavery and discrimination. But Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the right-leaning Fordham Institute, is concerned about the growing trend of anti-racism lessons in schools.

Pondiscio doesnt oppose the founding principles of critical race theory.But hesays teachers can better combat systemic racismbysetting high expectations for all students, using a rigorous and rich curriculum and focusing on literacy notideologies.

Whenever you have a phenomenon like this that people dont fully understand, itll be ripe for demagoguery,he said in an interview.

Legislation targeting critical race theory isnt the answer, he added.

Robert Pondiscio is senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.(Photo: Robert Pondiscio)

People make the assumption that you can pass a law and it changes what gets taught, he said. That's not how it works.

The legislation also raises free-speech concerns, said Emerson Sykes, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union'sSpeech, Privacy and Technology Project.

"The underlying impetus for these bills is antithetical to the free-speech values that many of these legislators claim to hold dear," he said, adding that the ACLU is in the process of evaluating its litigation options in response to the bills.

Sykes said the proposals are a form of prior restraint "censorship before someone has even had the opportunity to speak" and called inserting schools intocontroversial political debatesand mandating that teachers take a side is "hugelyproblematic."

The pushback has received its own pushback, prompting some of the bills including New Hampshire's to stall or die in committee. Others are proceeding at full speed.

Iowa's Department of Education had to postpone a conference related to social justice and equity in schools in anticipation of that state's bill being signed into law,Iowa Public Radio reported.Officials decided to put off the event until the fall.

In Idaho, Republican representatives said they wouldn't support a bill related to educators' salaries unless it alsoincluded lines reflecting the state's critical race theory-related legislation and banned schools from incorporating social justice into their teaching.

Non-legislative efforts to oppose critical race theory in schools have unfolded as well, including political task forces, campaign initiatives and school board debates.

In Anchorage, Alaska, the school board's move to adopt anti-racism policies drew criticism from one member who argued the measures would usher critical race theory into lesson plans. In California, activists launched a fight against both critical race theory and ethnic studies in schools. In April, theysued the San Diego Unified School District, claiming it'sunlawfully training educators in critical race theory.

In Texas,critical race theory's potential as a political lightning rod became clear following aDallas-areaschool district's efforts to soothe feelings after a viral TikTok video showed agroup of white teens shouting racial slurs.

School board meetings grew heated afterthe Carroll Independent School Districtcreated a diversity council thatdrafteda plan aimed at making its classrooms anti-racist. At one meeting,a Black student and member of the newdiversity council was booed after testifying"my life matters," according to the Dallas Morning News.

This month, opponents of the planwon a handful of seats including the mayor's office and positions on the school board in an election that garnered record-high voter turnout.

Their victory was described by The Federalist, a conservative online magazine, as a harbinger of "a new cultural Tea Party." It marks"an escalating movement to reclaim K-12 schools infected by the racism of critical race theory," the publication wrote.

In that kind of political climate, critical race theory has become a rallying cryto stoke conservative voters' fears, saidthe University of IllinoisDixson even though the theory was originally intended to advocate forthe same principles the legislation attacking it purports to promote.

What critical race theory doesnt do is indict entire races of people and blame the inequality on all white people, Dixson said. I dont know that any school teaches critical race theory in the way that these [legislators] interpret it.

Contributing: Jessica Guynn

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Teaching kids to hate America? Republicans want critical race theory out of schools - USA TODAY

The Monmouth Poll is considered to be the Gold Standard of polling in New Jersey. And under the leadership of its Executive Director, Patrick Murphy, the poll now has a top-flight national reputation as well, rated as A-plus by Nate Silvers Five Thirty Eight Blog.

So when the Monmouth Poll releases its findings, New Jersey political players and journalists stop what they are doing to evaluate the latest news from Sir Patrick. And if the New Jersey Republican Party was a stock, there would have been a substantial amount of short selling by its shareholders last week.

The news released from the Monmouth Poll last Wednesday, May 5, 2021 regarding NJGOP prospects in this Novembers gubernatorial election was most discouraging. In a nutshell, incumbent Governor Phil Murphy continues to enjoy substantially positive job approval (57%-31%) and reelect (48%-43%) ratings. While not as high as before, the Murphy numbers continue to presage a most comfortable reelection margin. https://www.insidernj.com/monmouth-poll-murphy-job-approval-rating-57/

Yet the following news, released by the Monmouth Poll the next day, Thursday, May 6, 2021, would be even worse for the NJGOP.New Jerseyans, by a wide margin (66%-27%) say that Governor Murphy is doing a good job handling the Coronavirus Pandemic, and nearly as many say the restrictions he has imposed to slow the spread of Covid-19 have been appropriate. Specifically,58 percent of New Jerseyans say the measures Murphy took to slow the spread of coronavirus have been appropriate, while 27 percent say they went too far and 14 percent say they didnt go far enough.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/06/new-jerseyans-still-giving-murphy-high-marks-for-his-handling-of-the-pandemic-poll-finds-485553

The news regarding the Murphy management of the state Pandemic response is absolutely devastating to the hopes of all GOP gubernatorial aspirants. Virtually every credible New Jersey GOP strategist has based Republican aspirations of defeating Phil Murphy on the possibility that the electorate would judge him negatively on his handling of the Pandemic. Instead, the opposite turns out to be true. Murphys handling of the Pandemic gives him a solid electoral advantage this November.

The Democrats have a registration advantage of 1,000,000 voters. In order for the Republicans to have a scintilla of a chance to oust an incumbent Democratic governor, two conditions must be extant.

First, the incumbent governor must have negative job approval and reelect numbers. Second, there must be a compelling issue upon which the NJGOP can base an effective negative campaign.

Neither of these two conditions exist. The absence of any compelling negative issue against Murphy is particularly ruinous to the hopes of New Jersey Republicans to recapture the governorship in this election. Unless there is a totally unanticipated crisis or scandal involving Phil Murphy prior to November, the Republicans have as much chance of defeating him as right-wing extremist kook Seth Grossman has of receiving a racial understanding award from the New Jersey NAACP.

In short, regarding the 2021 New Jersey gubernatorial election, this rodeo is over for the NJGOP, folks. Yet not all is bleak for the future of the New Jersey Republican Party.

There is an anti-Trump Republican office holder in the Garden State who will emerge from both the current national Republican civil war and the likely NJGOP debacle this November as the winter book favorite for the 2025 Republican gubernatorial nomination. He is highly regarded by both Never Trumpers and grass roots conservatives as well. He can also overcome the twin albatrosses of Donald Trump and Chris Christie and lead the NJGOP into a more hopeful era.

This Republican will face Democrat Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill for the governorship in the 2025 general election. Ill reveal his identity in my next column. Stay tuned.

Alan Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.

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Murphy's Handling of the Pandemic: The Worst News for the Republicans from the Monmouth Poll - InsiderNJ