Monthly Archives: July 2021

Since the end of the Trump Presidency, Republicans have been ratcheting up the doom-and-gloom quotient in their rhetoric. By this spring, they settled on a narrative of permanent crisisto be blamed on President Biden, of course. There was the Biden Border Crisis. The Crime Crisis. The Inflation Crisis and its corollary, the High-Gas-Price Crisis. The Critical-Race-Theory Crisis. Even, this week, the Ben & Jerrys-Is-Mean-to-Israel Crisis. America under Biden, to hear them tell it, has become a hellscape of disasters. In June, the House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, issued a letter to his colleagues. Our country is in crisis, he declared. Republicans stand against the impending malaise and stand for a greatness that we reached just a few years ago. The one crisis that Republicans have tended not to mention is the actual onethat is, the pandemic. When Republican politicians have focussed on COVID in recent months, its often been to give Donald Trump credit for the vaccines, while simultaneously accusing the Biden Administration of forcing those same vaccines on unwilling Americans.

So it was more than a bit surprising to see some Republicans this week kinda, sorta, maybe embrace a different message. The Louisiana congressman Steve Scalise, the Houses No. 2 Republican, posed for a photo of himself getting a vaccine shot, many months after he was eligible, and urged others to do the same. Get the vaccine, Scalise said, at a press conference on Thursday. I have high confidence in it. I got it myself. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor who was never on board with his partys vaccine denialists and anti-maskers, warned, during his own press conference: either get vaccinated or get ready for more lockdowns. This is not complicated, McConnell said. Fox News, which, along with Facebook, has been among the countrys premier platforms for vaccine disinformation in recent months, started promoting a new get-vaccinated public-service announcement. Its prime-time star, the Trump confidant Sean Hannity, stared straight into the camera on Monday night and said, It absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated.

These statements were not a coincidence; they were a cordinated political retreat. And no wonder: the new politics of the pandemic are following the alarming new math of the pandemic. With not quite half of the country48.8 per cent, to be exactfully vaccinated, cases of the new Delta variant are spiking upward across the United States, with particularly pronounced increases in large swaths of Trump country. At the end of June, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that eighty-six per cent of Democrats had at least one shot, versus fifty-two per cent of Republicansand the gap in vaccination rates is not closing but widening. As of July, thirty-five per cent of the population in counties that voted for Trump had been vaccinated, compared with nearly forty-seven per cent in counties that voted for Biden. By this week, new daily cases nationally were at their highest level since April. Deaths are increasing, too, while the number of new vaccinations is down to January levels.

The Republican pollster Glen Bolger told me that he didnt think the G.O.P.s about-face stemmed from a sudden fear of electoral debacle so much as a reflection of the alarming trend lines in red America. Until now, Republicans felt like we dont necessarily need to push on vaccines and tick off a significant portion of our base, so we wont talk about it, Bolger said. But, with cases increasing, that calculus changed. Its more of Hey, guess whos getting sick? Republicans, he said. Red America is facing a deadly fourth wave of the pandemic, and Republican politicians, or at least some, appear to have decided that they dont want to take the blame for killing off their own voters.

President Biden certainly noticed the rhetorical shift. Theyve had an altar call, some of those guys, Biden said, during a CNN town hall on Wednesday night. All of a sudden, theyre out there saying, Lets get vaccinated, lets get vaccinated.... Thats good. But Biden is having to do his own, somewhat less egregious, version of backpedalling, too. The President had set a goal of seventy per cent of American adults being vaccinated by July 4th. Even though that didnt happen, he went ahead with a huge party at the White House for some thousand mostly unmasked guests, including first responders and essential workers whove spent the past sixteen months battling the pandemicIndependence Day from the disease being the not very subtle message. But math is math, and the numbers are not good. On Wednesday night, at the town hall, Biden suggested that schoolchildren would probably have to wear masks when in-person classes resume this fall, and foreshadowed the reimposition of indoor mask mandates for the broader population that may soon be coming. (Confusingly, Biden added, But this is not a pandemic. Earlier, the President got the new reality right: Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated.) On Thursday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, also seemed to indicate that such measures may be back on the table, with decisions to be driven by the C.D.C. She added, Weve never said that battle is over.

On Capitol Hillwhich, like the rest of Washington, has been rapidly returning to a pre-pandemic normal this summeralarms sounded once again when it was revealed this week that one vaccinated aide to Speaker Nancy Pelosi had tested positive for the coronavirus, along with several staffers in the extremely COVID-conscious White House. Everyone seemed to remember all at once a CNN poll from May which found that, although the entire Democratic membership of Congress had been vaccinated, the number was as low as forty-five per cent for House Republicans. When I went to the House for an interview, on Wednesday, I saw that some staffers were masking back up again. For a Wednesday-night reception that Pelosi held for the new House sergeant-at-arms, Axios reported, all guests were expected to wear a mask. On Thursday, Republicans had a press conference outside the Capitol for the ostensible purpose of prodding their voters to get the vaccine. There was a bit of that, as well as a lot of blame-shifting. A headline in the Times summed it up: House Republicans Use Vaccine Press Conference to Bash Democrats.

All the drearily predictable talking points reminded me that, if theres one thing weve all learned by now in the pandemic, its that public health and politics are one and the same: there is no way to separate them. Biden came into office pledging to follow the science, to vaccinate the country and lead the recovery. But he could not vaccinate the country against Fox News. There was no shot that could give viewers immunity to Tucker Carlson or Marjorie Taylor Greene. The result, for now, is that we have failed to achieve the herd immunity that would have wiped out COVID. Biden staked his Presidency on beating the virus and building back better. Politically speaking, though, theres not much point in talking about infrastructure deals or high-speed Internet if the pandemic is going to keep millions of Americans confined to their homes. Sothe irony of ironiesBidens political future may well come down to the persuadability of Trumps political base. And are they really persuadable? After all this, I find it almost impossible to believe that there is a way to persuade millions of vaccine-skeptical Republicans to embrace the shot that their leaders have been demonizing for months. Demagoguery is addictive, and its proved brutally effectiveeven for public health. Its more about what your team or your cable news network says than it is about reality, Bolger said, regretfully. At least both parties now seem to agree on one thing: the COVID Crisis isnt really over anymore.

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Suddenly, (Some) Republicans Are All In on the Vaccine - The New Yorker

The rhetoric has reached cities as small as Brackettville, Texas, where local officials signed a state of disaster letter declaring their rural border county under siege as immigrants invade. Republican governors in states nowhere near Mexico, including South Dakota and Ohio, are heeding the calls from Abbott and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to send National Guard troops and other law enforcement agents to patrol the nations southwestern edge.

The Biden administration has turned every town into a border town, and every state into a border state, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn told reporters last week, referencing migrant children flown into shelters in her state. Look at what we would be opening our country, our communities, our states, to, if this is allowed to continue.

Tough talk on border security and immigration has long been a staple of Republican politics, particularly during primaries, when politicians often vow to crack down on illegal immigration. But Trump took the rhetoric to a new level in both volume and intensity as president, frequently complaining of an invasion of nameless immigrants and depicting border crossers as criminals and killers in his rally speeches.

That overwrought invasion language, which Republican officials are now echoing to criticize Bidens border policies, plays into far right and, explicitly, white supremacist tropes that fuel anxiety among white voters about the dilution of their political power, historians and political analysts said, and that could have deadly consequences. Two recent white supremacist shooting suspects, Robert Bowers in Pittsburgh and Patrick Crusius in El Paso, Texas, cited invaders and a Hispanic invasion in the lead-up to their crimes.

Republicans say they have legitimate reasons to raise fears about the situation at the border, pointing to apprehensions that reached a 20-year high in June and rising summer temperatures that havent had their usual effect of deterring crossings.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has been blasting out a weekday newsletter dubbed the Biden Border Crisis, with what it lists as Bidens policy failures, as congressional Republicans head down to the Rio Grande Valley for boat tours of the border.

Democrats created a border crisis, and it keeps getting worse, NRCC spokeswoman Torunn Sinclair said. Their inability and unwillingness to stem the flow of drugs and migrants illegally crossing the US-Mexico border will cost them their House majority.

Democrats defend Bidens approach to the border, pointing out that the crossings started to hit new peaks under Trump, as well, even as Trump took hardline and inhumane measures to deter migrants.

But several polls suggest the GOP lines of attack may be having an effect. A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released in June found approval for Bidens handling of immigration had dropped since February, from 56 percent to 52 percent, the lowest rating out of any of the eight issues polled. Another Washington Post-ABC News poll from July found 51 percent of Americans disapproved, making immigration Bidens lowest ranking issue in that poll, as well.

The use of more inflammatory language around immigration, including painting migrants as criminals, is not new to the Republican Party.

Anti-immigrant sentiment has approached the partys mainstream at various times since Congress passed legislation in 1965 tackling immigration reform and civil rights and most recently in California, Arizona, and Texas, where the Latino population has grown.

Pat Buchanan, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996, wrote books that warned about immigrant invasions eroding Western society, and years before Trump, Iowa Representative Steve King called for a border wall and compared immigrants to dogs.

But Buchanan was shunned from his party and King ousted from his committees for his rhetoric as recently as 2018. Trump, who slammed Buchanan as a Hitler lover in 1999 before cribbing his language on immigration years later, has been embraced.

After Trump rode that message into the White House, his attorney general Jeff Sessions and Trump aide Stephen Miller played to white grievances as they reshaped the nations approach to immigration and the US-Mexico border, drastically curbing the path to asylum, limiting legal forms of migration, and making the vilification of immigrants they deemed unwanted a consistent and open theme of the Trump presidency.

We tend to think of Trump as undisciplined and scattered and unorganized, but when it came to his immigration during the four years of his presidency, he had a laser focus, said Geraldo Cadava, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University and author of The Hispanic Republican.

The Trump administrations anti-immigrant language, coupled with its harsh policy approach, resonated with the mix of white power activists, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists who first came together in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to seek to create a separate white ethnostate, experts said. Now, some of the movements ideas permeate in the mainstream immigration debate, most notably echoes of the Great Replacement trope a racist conspiracy theory with roots in early 20th century French nationalism. It asserts that elites are using Black and brown immigrants from Africa and the Middle East to replace native white Europeans around the world.

By moving from the fringe to the mainstream, [the anti-immigrant rhetoric] provides cover to a much more radical and anti-Democratic strain in white power politics, said Kathleen Belew, a historian at the University of Chicago, who has studied the movement for 15 years.

In April, Tucker Carlson, the popular Fox News pundit, took a version of those views to prime time when he said Democrats planned to maintain power by changing the countrys population, and that they wanted to replace the current electorate with more obedient voters from the Third World.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin dipped into similar language on Fox Business just weeks later. The Biden administration wants complete open borders, Johnson said. And you have to ask yourself why? Is it really they want to remake the demographics of America to ensure their that they stay in power forever? Is that whats happening here?

To be sure, immigration is a thorny issue that has stumped both Republican and Democratic administrations over the past three decades and many Republican voters and politicians view it with nuance, saying they want tighter restrictions against illegal immigration but better treatment of people caught in the system.

Still, dehumanizing and more extreme language has surged as congressional and state-level Republicans have sought to keep Trumps border policies, claiming that migrants crossing the US-Mexico border are bringing drugs, crime, and disease; that federal officials are clandestinely moving immigrants into quiet and presumably predominantly white suburbs and neighborhoods nationwide; and that the newcomers are putting a strain on social services.

The language stirs fears of demographic change at a time when many Republicans are still rallying around an ex-president who declined to condemn white supremacist groups. We are just in this moment now where everyone is trying to figure out how far to the right, how far into white nationalism can the GOP go and still maintain a sense of legitimacy, said Laura Gmez, a law professor at the University of California who has written on race, Latino voters, and immigration in the United States.

Perhaps nowhere has the language been more pervasive than in Texas, where white nativist conspiracy theories that Mexicans plan to reconquer the Southwest have percolated since at least the 19th century, and where as recently as August 2019, a self-proclaimed white supremacist opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, killing 23 people.

In a racist online screed he wrote before the crime, the suspect parroted the Great Replacement theory, as well as Trump and Texas Republican rhetoric, as he warned against the Hispanic invasion of the state.

That hasnt stop Abbott from echoing Trump as he has raised alarm over the carnage fueled by people who are coming across the border. At a press conference that included Trump last month by the border wall, Abbott denounced a rise in criminal migrants, and pledged to complete the steel-rod fence to stop communities from being overrun.

We need to emphasize exactly why we are doing this, Abbott said. We are doing this because our fellow Texans and our fellow Americans, they are being threatened every single day.

Standing nearby, Trump sternly looked on.

Reach Jazmine Ulloa at jazmine.ulloa@globe.com or on Twitter: @jazmineulloa.

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Stoking fears of immigrants has been part of the Republican platform for decades. But something is different this time - The Boston Globe

Its a summer of worry for some Pennsylvania Republicans.

A rocky July has increased concern among some party insiders that theyre lacking marquee candidates for critical statewide races next year.

First came a public blowup between likely gubernatorial candidate Bill McSwain and former Attorney General Bill Barr. Some prominent GOP donors and operatives saw it as a daft mistake that reinforced questions about his political acumen. Those insiders, largely from Southeastern Pennsylvania, have spoken to a political veteran from McSwains backyard former U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach of Chester County to gauge his interest in running for governor, according to four people familiar with the conversations, and some are hopeful that additional candidates join the fray.

Meanwhile, in the states critical 2022 U.S. Senate race, fund-raising reports this month showed the leading GOP contenders all lagging behind the top Democrats. None of the major Republican Senate candidates has ever won elected office, a stark contrast with the emerging Democratic field that includes an array of well-established officeholders.

The anxiety is hardly universal in the GOP, and many Republicans remain confident in their chances, dismissing the chatter as predictable political carping. But the early stages of the two races have some in the partys establishment wing worried the GOP could blow a golden opportunity in 2022, when other factors are shaping up in their favor. Democrats could face the political backlash that usually confronts the presidents party in midterm elections. And Republicans are pointing to inflation, crime, and controversies over how schools teach students about racism as issues that could set the stage for big gains across the country.

Republicans are hoping the governors race delivers total control in Harrisburg (they already hold the legislature), while the Senate contest is one of a handful that could decide control of the chamber and with it the fate of President Joe Bidens agenda.

In a state as closely divided as Pennsylvania, the strength of individual candidates can make a difference in races that could come down to a few percentage points.

READ MORE: Bill McSwain tried to walk a political tightrope on Trumps election lies. Bill Barr cut it.

For most, the GOP concerns are more acute in the gubernatorial race, according to interviews with Republican or conservative donors and operatives. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal private discussions and candidly assess their partys potential nominees.

Much of the worry comes from the Philadelphia region, where the party is driven by a more pre-Trump establishment. After seeing Republicans decimated in the suburbs in recent years, theres a fear that a weak or Trump-styled gubernatorial nominee could sink even more down-ballot candidates in competitive local races.

We have quality candidates in the race now for both governor and Senate and they are working very hard, said Vince Galko, a Republican operative who has long worked on suburban races. There remains a faction of the donor base that are keeping the door open for potential other candidates that may emerge.

Guy Ciarrocchi, president of the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry, said he has heard from several people about running for governor himself, and I am listening though many in the party doubt he can muster a serious challenge.

Like Gerlach, Ciarrocchi is also from McSwains home county, suggesting that potential rivals dont see McSwain, a former U.S. attorney, as an insurmountable force. Gerlach did not respond to messages seeking comment.

People are naturally questioning whos out there on the governors side and whos going to be the right candidate, said Josh Novotney, a GOP lobbyist from Philadelphia who has worked on statewide campaigns.

The GOP critics especially see State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin), a likely gubernatorial candidate, as a lightning rod who could win a fractured primary but make the Republican ticket unpalatable in a general election. Former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta is well-liked personally. But many Republicans believe he ran a lackluster 2018 campaign against Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and fear a repeat as he now campaigns for governor.

Both are vocal Trump supporters.

McSwain was seen as a potential alternative with a prosecutors tough-on-crime resume and potential appeal in the states populous suburbs. But some argue his brawl with Barr undercut his main selling points.

McSwain, Trump revealed, had written to the former president suggesting he was blocked from investigating voter fraud allegations. But Barr, his former boss, said McSwain had crafted an intentionally misleading letter, admitted to doing it to curry favor with Trump, and had just wanted to flap his gums for publicity. He said McSwain had license to investigate.

Other Republicans doubted the incident would really hurt McSwain, especially so early in the race, before he has even officially entered the contest. Its early, few voters are paying attention, and many in the GOP have soured on Barr because he rejected Trumps baseless fraud claims.

I wouldnt be shocked if some people were concerned, but I dont think it was that much damage Novotney said. I actually think it helps in a primary.

Like others, he noted that insiders aired similar concerns when Toomey was the leading Senate candidate before the 2010 election. Toomey went on to win two Senate terms before deciding against seeking reelection next year, opening the door to a GOP free-for-all. Establishment Republicans were also initially horrified when Trump won their presidential nomination in 2016, only to come around when he won.

READ MORE: Pennsylvanias 2022 Senate candidates just filed new fund-raising reports. Heres what the money tells us.

Several Republicans said these kind of complaints often arise as consultants try to drum up business by luring new people into the race. They scoffed at the idea that Gerlach could ride in as a winning candidate he hasnt run a campaign since 2012.

Everybodys just starting to get a feel for everybody, said Joe Vichot, the Republican chairman in Lehigh County. I do not have a concern for the strength of the field.

He said the GOP has a diverse range of Senate options and that the pro-Trump stylings of Mastriano and Barletta could help in much of the state.

His agenda over the four years, and what he was running on in 2020, was outstanding, Vichot said. I would never discourage anyone from sticking to that platform.

In contrast to his 2018 Senate run, Barletta has kept a busy early campaign schedule. He has visited 30 of the states 67 counties since joining the governors race in May, his campaign said.

Wed be happy to put his record up against existing candidates or any who might come forward, said Barletta adviser Tim Murtaugh.

McSwains camp pointed to his resume and appointment by Trump to be the top federal prosecutor in the Philadelphia region.

Bill McSwain is a conservative, a U.S. Marine, and was trusted by President Trump to aggressively prosecute violent criminals in Philadelphia as U.S. Attorney, McSwain spokesman James Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

A Mastriano spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Theres less worry on the Senate race, where insiders see credible options, but an acknowledgment that none of the GOP contenders have stood out so far.

The two most prominent candidates, Montgomery County real estate developer Jeff Bartos and Allegheny County former Army ranger Sean Parnell, failed to reach $600,000 in fund-raising during the period covering April, May, and June. They were outdone by a lesser-known candidate, conservative commentator Kathy Barnette (though Bartos added $440,000 of his own money to boost his campaign fund, and raised far more earlier in the race).

READ MORE: Pennsylvania Republicans have a path to victory in 2022. Pro-Trump candidates may not follow it.

Three different Democratic hopefuls, meanwhile, were near or above the $1 million mark in the same stretch. Donations are often used as an early measure of whether candidates can appeal to political diehards.

While arguing theres time for Bartos and Parnell to grow, GOP operatives are also watching to see if Barnette can keep it up, or if new entrant Carla Sands, Trumps former ambassador to Denmark, can make a mark. One major question is whether Sands will put some of her considerable wealth behind her campaign.

Some Republicans noted that in a race with such high stakes, national political groups will spend big to help narrow fund-raising shortfalls.

In 2016, it was Democrats who worried they lacked a strong candidate for that years key Senate race. Eventual nominee Katie McGinty came within 1.5 percentage points of beating Toomey.

Its a reminder that Pennsylvania races are often excruciatingly close, no matter what. But also that even marginal differences can matter.

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Pa. Republicans see a big opportunity in 2022. But some are worried their candidates might blow it. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Elected Republican officials in a conservative Michigan county who gave themselves bonuses totalling $65,000 with federal Covid-19 relief funds said they would return the money following days of criticism.

The Shiawassee county commissioners acted after a prosecutor said the payments were illegal, the Argus-Press reported.

The Michigan state constitution bars additional compensation for elected officials after services had already been rendered, prosecutor Scott Koerner said.

The commissioners voted on 15 July to award themselves $65,000 as part of a plan to give $557,000 to 250 county employees as hazard pay for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

The smallest amounts for recipients were $1,000 to $2,000. But the chairman of the county board, Jeremy Root, got $25,000. Two commissioners received $10,000 each, while four received $5,000 each.

The vote was 6-0 with one commissioner absent.

The commissioners awarded money to other elected officials, including the prosecutor, the sheriff and the county clerk all Republicans too. They also said they would give it back.

Since these payments were made, confusion about the nature of these funds has run rampant, a statement said.

[We] deeply regret that this gesture has been misinterpreted, and have unanimously decided to voluntarily return the funds to the county, pending additional guidance from the state of Michigan.

One commissioner, Marlene Webster, insisted she had no idea she had voted to pay herself. She returned the money last week, posting a copy of the check on Facebook. She criticized the latest statement, saying there was no misinterpretation.

Thats an insult to the citizens of Shiawassee county, Webster said.

Two Michigan congressmen, a Democrat and a Republican, said federal virus aid was not intended to reward elected officials.

A judge set a hearing for Monday in a lawsuit aimed at rescinding bonuses for the officials, filed before the latest action.

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Michigan Republicans will return Covid relief funds used to pay own bonuses - The Guardian

Across the United States, Republican state party officials are taking unprecedented steps to discourage or even purge critics of Donald Trump and promote potential allies of the former president.

These efforts are the latest sign of Trumps ongoing stranglehold over areas of the Republican party that are usually neutral and reflect his intense popularity with a wide slice of the Republican base, despite his scandal-strewn four years in power and his loss to Joe Biden in 2020.

Traditionally state Republican parties have taken pains to avoid favoritism within primaries and intra-party battles. The mission of those groups and their members is generally to help get Republicans elected, regardless of which party sect they align with.

In Oklahoma, the state Republican party chairman endorsed a challenger to Senator James Lankford, an incumbent Republican, over Lankfords last-minute decision to not object to the 2020 presidential election results on 6 January.

In Wyoming, a Republican party official sent out a plea to members of Congress to vet primary challengers to Congresswoman Liz Cheney, one of Trumps favorite obsessions since leaving office.

In Alaska, the state Republican party is backing Kelly Tshibaka, the former commissioner of administration, to take Lisa Murkowskis Senate seat about a month after Trump himself endorsed Tshibaka. Some of Tshibakas consultants are high-ranking veterans of Trumps unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign.

These latest moves are a continuation of a trend of activism among state GOP officials to side with Trump and spurn elected officials and prominent Republicans some of whom are otherwise popular who have antagonized Trump. Republican parties in Arizona, Illinois, Maine and Ohio have also censured party members who split with Trump on certifying the election results.

But rank-and-file Republican officials actively working to tip the scales to placate the whims of a one-term president are breaking new ground.

Were in a period now with a former president who has grievances of his own party and hes using his clout and his megaphone and his power to attempt to exact revenge on those individuals. And in certain states where Trump is popular or where an incumbent political figure has taken a deeply unpopular political position, you are seeing some internal opposition, said Matt Mackowiak, the chairman of the Travis county GOP, in Texas.

He added: I think were living in a time now where party officials dont feel as duty-bound to support every member of the party, particularly if theyve gone in a different direction on a fairly important issue.

Suspicions of candidate loyalty within party infrastructure are not unheard of or unique to the Republican party. During the last open race for Democratic National Committee chair in 2017, Democratic activists sometimes theorized that Barack Obama or other establishment state party chairs were subtly trying to support certain candidates and discourage others. But those suspicions only extended so far.

Theres little historical precedent for party chairs intervening in primaries, said Matt Moore, a former South Carolina Republican party chairman. Usually theres great deference given not only to elected officials but also to the state committees that elect chairs.

The impact of the help these state Republican party members provided is unclear.

Alaskas Senator Murkowski, for instance, has survived serious challenges from conservatives in the past and this financial quarter she out-raised Tshibaka a sign that the Trump-endorsed primary challengers chances of winning are not assured. In Wyoming, Cheney is facing a handful of challengers who could split the anti-Cheney vote.

Moore argued that the involvement of officials in Trumps efforts to undermine his opponents could actually undermine the state parties.

I would argue it actually weakens the party in the long term. It reduces the credibility of chairs, especially when they endorse crackpot candidates against serious US senators, Moore said. The big success of the party in the past decade is improved infrastructure, so when sitting US senators dont play ball with the party it reduces the quality of the infrastructure like field programs, data, etc.

Even more unusual, these internal Republican party conflicts have little to do with a broad swath of policy disagreements.Instead they are often about whether a candidate supported Trumps false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent.

Whats happened is historically odd, Moore said. Weve seen senators over the years attacked by party chairs or the party in general, but never over one vote. Its very strange.

Its now clear that incumbent Republicans who have crossed Trump have done so at their peril. In Georgia for example, the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, the top elections official in the state and a Republican, faces a primary challenge from congressman Jody Hice after refusing to help Trump undermine the 2020 election results.

Across the country Republicans realize that their biggest electoral dangers come not necessarily from a strong Democratic opponent, but from their standing with Trump, even though he is out of office.

Here its a 100% purity test, said state representative Landon Brown of Wyoming.

The Wyoming state party has passed bylaws that bar the state party from giving a lawmaker money unless that lawmaker votes in line with the Wyoming Republican partys platform 80% of the time, Brown said. The Wyoming party gives lawmakers scorecards and lets them know if they are failing. Brown summed up the partys ideology: If you are not aligned with Trump, you are not a Republican.

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State Republicans shun lawmakers critical of Trump and his big lie - The Guardian

Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag

In the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, when both parties agreed on the need for an investigation into the attack, the shorthand that entered the lexicon was 9/11-style commission. When, on January 12, Illinois Republican Rodney Davis introduced a bill to create a commission, he noted that the commissions structure is in line with the 9/11 Commission. Momentum is growing on Capitol Hill for an independent 9/11-style commission, reported The Hill later that month.

But when media accounts these days describe the political wrangling over the investigation, the once-ubiquitous term now rarely appears. The reason for this is that the entire political context for the investigation has changed. The insurrection was briefly considered an event akin to 9/11: an outside attack, which in its horror would unite the parties.

Now Republicans see the insurrection as an action by their political allies. Some of them are embarrassed by the insurrection and wish to avoid discussing it, while others see its members as noble martyrs. But almost none of them actually have the stomach to denounce the rioters any more.

That broader context has been obscured by a series of maneuvers over the investigating committee first by Republicans appointing Jims Banks and Jordan, two ardent Trumpists, followed by Democrats rejecting the Republicans appointments, followed by Republicans boycotting the committee and calling for their own. Two months ago, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy opposed a bipartisan commission as duplicative, and now he has proposed to counter the committee by creating a literal duplicate.

Politico reporter Rachel Bade suggests the squabbles over the commissions members comes down to whether silencing GOP voices is the right way to go in convincing GOP voters. But at this point, this is not convincing. The Republican strategy was set long ago: It is to discredit the investigation and deflect attention onto Nancy Pelosis alleged failure to prepare, or Antifa violence, or anything they can throw at the wall other than the effort by a pro-Trump mob to forcibly cancel the election.

In the weeks since Washington briefly came together in shared outrage, Republicans have considered, and then rejected, impeaching Donald Trump over the attempted coup, then voted down a bipartisan commission in the Senate.

Trump, for his part, has energetically written the history of the episode.He has described the mob as a a loving crowd desiring only a fair outcome who were ushered in by the police only to be savagely attacked and murdered.

Not all, or even most, Republicans have gone so far as to affirmatively endorse this delusional revisionist narrative. But they have no desire either to revive their short-lived attempt to write the rioters out of the Republican party or to refute Trumps campaign of lies about it.

Banks has dismissed the investigation as an effort to malign conservatives. He is not wrong, though there is a circularity to his reasoning. In the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, conservatives attacked it forcefully. Had they maintained that position, the investigation would not have threatened them. But since they have decided instead to defend it, anything that casts the riot in a bad light will necessarily besmirch the party that defends the rioters. That is a political choice, not an impersonal law of political physics.

The scrambling and confusion is the result of the fact that the January 6 commission was conceived in a political context that no longer exists. Congress never would have had a 9/11-style commission if the hijackers had been supporters of, and had received support from, one of the political parties.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

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Imagine a 9/11 Commission If the Hijackers Had Allies in Congress - New York Magazine

Im a huge believer in the usefulness of social science, especially studies that use comparisons across time and space to shed light on our current situation. So when the political scientist Henry Farrell suggested that I look at his fields literature on cults of personality, I followed his advice. He recommended one paper in particular, by the New Zealand-based researcher Xavier Mrquez; I found it revelatory.

The Mechanisms of Cult Production compares the behavior of political elites across a wide range of dictatorial regimes, from Caligulas Rome to the Kim familys North Korea, and finds striking similarities. Despite vast differences in culture and material circumstances, elites in all such regimes engage in pretty much the same behavior, especially what the paper dubs loyalty signaling and flattery inflation.

Signaling is a concept originally drawn from economics; it says that people sometimes engage in costly, seemingly pointless behavior as a way to prove that they have attributes others value. For example, new hires at investment banks may work insanely long hours, not because the extra hours are actually productive, but to demonstrate their commitment to feeding the money machine.

In the context of dictatorial regimes, signaling typically involves making absurd claims on behalf of the Leader and his agenda, often including nauseating displays of loyalty. If the claims are obvious nonsense and destructive in their effects, if making those claims humiliates the person who makes them, these are features, not bugs. I mean, how does the Leader know if youre truly loyal unless youre willing to demonstrate your loyalty by inflicting harm both on others and on your own reputation?

And once this kind of signaling becomes the norm, those trying to prove their loyalty have to go to ever greater extremes to differentiate themselves from the pack. Hence flattery inflation: The Leader isnt just brave and wise, hes a perfect physical specimen, a brilliant health expert, a Nobel-level economic analyst, and more. The fact that hes obviously none of these things only enhances the effectiveness of the flattery as a demonstration of loyalty.

Does all of this sound familiar? Of course it does, at least to anyone who has been tracking Fox News or the utterances of political figures like Lindsey Graham or Kevin McCarthy.

Many people, myself included, have declared for years that the G.O.P. is no longer a normal political party. It doesnt look anything like, say, Dwight Eisenhowers Republican Party or Germanys Christian Democrats. But it bears a growing resemblance to the ruling parties of autocratic regimes.

The only unusual thing about the G.O.P.s wholesale adoption of the Leader Principle is that the party doesnt have a monopoly on power; in fact, it controls neither Congress nor the White House. Politicians suspected of insufficient loyalty to Donald Trump and Trumpism in general arent sent to the gulag. At most, they stand to lose intraparty offices and, possibly, future primaries. Yet such is the timidity of Republican politicians that these mild threats are apparently enough to make many of them behave like Caligulas courtiers.

Unfortunately, all this loyalty signaling is putting the whole nation at risk. In fact, it will almost surely kill large numbers of Americans in the next few months.

The stalling of Americas initially successful vaccination drive isnt entirely driven by partisanship some people, especially members of minority groups, are failing to get vaccinated for reasons having little to do with current politics.

But politics is nonetheless clearly a key factor: Republican politicians and Republican-oriented influencers have driven much of the opposition to Covid-19 vaccines, in some cases engaging in what amounts to outright sabotage. And there is a stunning negative correlation between Trumps share of a countys vote in 2020 and its current vaccination rate.

How did lifesaving vaccines become politicized? As Bloombergs Jonathan Bernstein suggests, todays Republicans are always looking for ways to show that theyre more committed to the cause than their colleagues are and given how far down the rabbit hole the party has already gone, the only way to do that is nonsense and nihilism, advocating crazy and destructive policies, like opposing vaccines.

That is, hostility to vaccines has become a form of loyalty signaling.

None of this should be taken to imply that Republicans are the root of all evil or that their opponents are saints; Democrats are by no means immune to the power of special interests or the lure of the revolving door.

But the G.O.P. has become something different, with, as far as I know, no precedent in American history although with many precedents abroad. Republicans have created for themselves a political realm in which costly demonstrations of loyalty transcend considerations of good policy or even basic logic. And all of us may pay the price.

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Opinion | Republicans Have Their Own Private Autocracy - The New York Times