Monthly Archives: April 2024

Donald Trump's Easter Sunday message to his followers on Truth Social was a simple command: "Never forget."

The former president fumed at retiring House Republicans, specifically sharing a report of Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher's recent decision to not seek another term despite pleas from GOP leadership in the House. Gallagher announced that he will instead step down on April 19, leaving the seat vacant until 2025. Republicans currently only have a four-seat majority in the House.

"Never forget our cowards and weaklings!" Trump wrote Sunday morning. "Such a disgrace."

While trapped in his office during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by Trump's MAGA followers, Gallagher made a direct appeal to Republican members of Congress who objected to certifying the 2020 presidential election.

The objectors, over the last two days, have told me there is no problem having a debate: We know were not going to succeed. So were just going to object. Were going to have a debate, Gallagher said in the video, adding that other Republicans claimed, There will be no cost to this effort.

He continued:This is the cost of countenancing an effort by Congress to overturn the election and telling thousands of people that there is a legitimate shot of overturning the election today, even though you know that is not true.

Gallagher begged his colleagues to call it off. Now the congressman, who was first elected in 2016, is calling it quits as Republicans prepare to nominate Donald Trump, who on Sunday seemingly compared himself to Jesus Christ, for president for a third time.

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"Never forget": Trump unloads on Republican "cowards and weaklings" in Easter Sunday meltdown - Salon

Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election because he was broadly unpopular and running against someone who (at the time) wasnt. He lost handily, trailing Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes out of nearly 160 million cast.

Only by the electoral college was the race considered particularly close; Bidens victory came down to 43,000 votes in three states. But that was enough for Trump to launch a fervent, unrelenting effort to try to once again wriggle his way into the White House by claiming that the election had been stolen from him.

In the 1,200-plus days since the election ended, no evidence has emerged of widespread or even significant electoral fraud. Instead, numerous theories elevated or embraced by Trump have been debunked. No election in American history has been scrutinized as robustly and ceaselessly as the 2020 contest. Nothing to suggest that the results were invalid or artificial has emerged.

But that observation comes from the real world, in which arguments are tested and abandoned when disproved. Donald Trump operates in Trumpworld, where reality is dependent on the views and positions of Donald Trump. And in Trumpworld, the idea that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud is accepted as fact, even though it isnt.

In Washington Post-ABC News polling conducted in September, half of Republicans said that they believed there exists solid evidence of voter fraud, which there doesn't.

New reporting from The Washington Posts Josh Dawsey suggests that fealty to this Trumpworld idea is becoming a litmus test for people seeking (or hoping to retain) jobs with the Republican Party. The effective ouster of Ronna McDaniel as the partys chair and Trumps confirmation as the GOP presidential nominee meant an overhaul of the party itself. Among the changes: quizzing at least some potential employees on their views of the 2020 election.

In recent days, Trump advisers have quizzed multiple employees who had worked in key 2024 states about their views on the last presidential election, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private interviews and discussions. The interviews have been conducted mostly virtually, as the prospective future employees are based in key swing states.

Was the 2020 election stolen? one prospective employee recalled being asked in a room with two top Trump advisers.

A Republican/Trump spokeswoman insisted that the questions were simply aimed at seeking out experienced staff with meaningful views on how elections are won and lost and real experience-based opinions about what happens in the trenches. Its not hard to peel away the veneer here: The party wants their employees to espouse the view and opinion that 2020 was ripped away from Donald Trump.

Theres an obvious immediate utility here. The traditional Republican establishment has struggled for years to accommodate Trump and Trumpism, to exist as respected, credible actors in national politics and political discussions while not alienating the MAGA base. Thats where the the election was rigged narrative came from; it was a way of telling Trumps base that the 2020 results were dubious without having to muss ones hair with a check-the-ballots-for-bamboo tinfoil hat.

By checking for fealty to the false stolen narrative at the outset, Trumps allies arent simply weeding out people who disagree, theyre weeding out people who wont acquiesce to the Trumpian approach to reality. Theyre not just getting rid of people who wont go along on this one subject; theyre getting rid of people who wont go along in general.

Soon after Trump took office in 2017, Xavier Marquez, an expert on authoritarianism, wrote an essay for The Post in which he explained the utility of lies like the one about election fraud to authoritarian leaders.

[L]ies can help ensure the loyalty of subordinates who are forced to repeat them, Marquez wrote, more than three years before the 2020 contest. These kinds of lies need not be credible at all to people outside the regime. The more incredible a lie is, the more it can credibly signal loyalty to a political leader in conditions of low trust. When a subordinate repeats an obviously ridiculous claim he or she is degraded, and bound more closely to the leader.

Trumps takeover of the Republican Party is the first time since he announced his 2024 candidacy that he assumed control of an existing institution. Upon doing so, he and his allies introduced a screening process that included this fealty test. Which is very much what hes proposed doing with the federal bureaucracy should he win reelection.

Many of those looking to work for the GOP will have few qualms about acceding to Trumps version of reality, certainly. Those willing to become party functionaries at this point understand what theyre signing up for. But existing party employees will also probably be disinclined to deviate from any adjustments to their shared worldview. Research published last year found that those who identified their bosses as authoritarian were less likely to correctly spot fake news than people with bosses who encouraged autonomy. More importantly, those with authoritarian bosses were also much less likely to challenge their bosses about false information.

George Orwells famous quote from 1984 comes to mind: The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

In this case, though, the party isnt telling anyone to reject the evidence. Not really. Theres a reason that half of Republicans think theres solid evidence that the election was riddled with fraud: They arent being presented with the reality that it wasnt. Fox News and right-wing social media arent assiduously policing misinformation about what happened in 2020 for the simple reason that theres no utility for them in doing so.

Instead, the partys just checking to make sure that your eyes and ears didnt somehow come across the evidence that theyd rather have you ignore.

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Analysis | The revamped Republican Party turns Trump's lies into a loyalty test - The Washington Post

Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.

Donald Trumps domination of the primaries made it official: He has successfully routed the GOP establishment.

Some would argue, with ample evidence, that this happened a long time ago. Particularly in Congress, the party is divided into three sometimes overlapping factions: Reaganites, pragmatists and populists, the last being Trumps MAGA faction. Politicians from the non-MAGA factions have been retreating, retiring or reinventing themselves in Trumps image for years now.

If Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida arent fully MAGA in their hearts, you wouldnt know it from their current public personas. Other Republicans, including former Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Bob Corker of Tennessee, along with former Reps. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Eric Cantor of Virginia, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, were either shown the door or fled for it themselves. And outside institutions such as the Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC, and the Heritage Foundation have repositioned themselves as MAGA organs.

That process has accelerated since Trump effectively locked up the Republican nomination for president for the third time. Over the past few months, non-MAGA Republicans such as Reps. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington have announced that they will be leaving Congress. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the last actual avatar of the GOP establishment, declared that he would not run to lead the Republican caucus again and went on to endorse Trump.

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The takeover is culminating with the Trumpian captivity of the Republican National Committee. Theres virtually no Republican establishment left that isnt synonymous with the Trump establishment.

Michael Whatley, the former head of the North Carolina GOP, is the new national chairman, having earned Trumps favor as an unrestrained booster of his claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Lara Trump, the former presidents daughter-in-law, is serving alongside Whatley as co-chair. And Chris LaCivita, a top Trump campaign adviser, will run day-to-day operations. On Monday, they began a wholesale purge of staffers deemed insufficiently loyal.

Trumps son Donald Jr. agrees that its official. In an interview with Newsmax Sunday, he said the old GOP establishment no longer exists. People have to understand that America first, the MAGA movement, is the new Republican Party. That is conservatism today.

Now, one can quibble over whether a political philosophy that traces itself back to Edmund Burke and the American founding can be transformed by the installment of Trump apparatchiks at the RNC. Trump himself might even agree with those quibbles.

Trump has previously described himself as a nationalist, and he at least partly rejected the conservative label in an interview with CNBCs Squawk Box on Monday. People say, Youre conservative, Trump said. Im not conservative. You know what I am? Im a man of common sense, and a lot of conservative policies are common sense.

Whatever we call him, whats clear is that Trump thinks his team can go it alone. At a recent Virginia rally, he declared that MAGA represents 96%, and maybe 100% of the GOP. Were getting rid of the Romneys of the world. We want to get Romneys and those (like him) out.

Normally, general election candidates try to expand their coalitions. Primary election exit polls and the actual results belie Trumps claim that the party is now almost pure MAGA.

In each of the six states with entrance and exit polls, a CNN analysis found, a sizable minority of the GOP electorate identified directly as a part of the MAGA, or Make America Great Again, movement, ranging from about one-third in California, Virginia and New Hampshire to nearly half in Iowa. Put another way, between half and two-thirds of those primary-voting Republicans dont identify as MAGA. Most will still likely hold their nose and vote for Trump in November, but thats not proof that the GOP is totally Trumpian.

The national GOP leadership, however, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trumpism. That behooves a movement that has often been as concerned with taking over the party as taking over the government. In Republican primaries, Trump has tended to back loyalists with dim general election prospects over more traditional Republicans with a better chance of actually winning House and Senate seats. The MAGA movement seems convinced that a purer party dedicated to Trump is for some reason better than one saddled with the remnants of the old GOP coalition.

For all practical purposes, their wish has been granted. Thats good for the movement if Trump wins in November. But if he loses, theyll have no one to blame but themselves. After all, theyre the establishment now.

First posted March 12, 2024. (C)2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Trump and his MAGA movement stormed the Republican establishment. Now they have become it. - The Fulcrum

Watch Senator Helming's remarks here.

Senator Pam Helming, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development, with Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt and members of the Senate Republican Conference, today unveiled a comprehensive legislative package to increase homeownership opportunities and improve access to affordable housing options.

The package proposes tax credits and incentives, reduces regulatory burdens, and facilitates new construction as well as improvements to existing housing stock.

Housing affordability is one of the biggest issues facing our state. Our conference has a plan to revitalize our existing housing stock by removing blight from our communities and replacing it with good quality housing units, to work with local communities on what housing strategies are best for them, to expand and create incentives for development, and to establish means-testing for rent-regulated housing to ensure that affordable housing units are occupied by those who truly need them. The legislative package we are putting forward today under the leadership of our housing ranker Senator Pam Helming will deliver affordable homeownership for the state of New York, said Leader Rob Ortt.

From the Bronx to Buffalo, the American Dream is unattainable for a large portion of our population. The good news is, this is a problem we can solve. Our Senate Republican Conference is again putting solutions on the table to increase access to affordable housing options for every New Yorker, from renters to first-time homebuyers to our workforce and seniors. Importantly, our solutions preserve local control and prioritize collaboration with municipalities to facilitate new builds and improve existing housing stock, said Senator Pam Helming.

Proposals in the housing legislative package would:

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Senator Helming and Senate Republican Conference Unveil Legislative Package to Expand Availability and Access to ... - The New York State Senate

US states with a 10% increase in Republican voting reported a 5% increase in COVID-19 vaccinerelated adverse events (AEs), a 25% increase in severe AEs, and a 21% higher proportion of AEs characterized as severe, with more pronounced associations in older people, a study today in JAMA Network Open concludes.

A University of Pennsylvanialed research team analyzed 620,456 AE reports filed by adult vaccine recipients or their clinicians in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database from 2020 to 2022, and compared them with AEs after influenza vaccination from 2019 to 2022. They examined the AEs against state-level proportions of Republican votes in the 2020 US presidential election.

The average age of vaccine recipients was 52 years, and women made up 70.2% of AE reporters. Vaccinees were able to file more than one report.

VAERS reports have not been verified, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes. "Anyone, including healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public, can submit reports to the system," the CDC says. "While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness."

"Antivaccine sentiment is increasingly associated with conservative political positions," the study authors wrote. "COVID-19 mortality has been higher in US jurisdictions that are more conservative in their party registration,voting history,or representation.These differences are likely explained, in part, by differences in vaccination rates."

Significant links were seen between state political inclination and state AE reporting for all three outcomes: a 10% increase in Republican voting was tied to greater chances of AE reports (odds ratio [OR], 1.05), severe AE reports (OR, 1.25), and the percentage of AEs characterized as severe (OR, 1.21).

These results suggest that either the perception of vaccine AEs or the motivation to report them was associated with political inclination.

While these associations were seen across all age-groups, they were more pronounced among older people. There was no such association for the flu vaccine.

"These results suggest that either the perception of vaccine AEs or the motivation to report them was associated with political inclination," the researchers wrote.

They added that the link between observation and belief is bidirectional. "The adage 'seeing is believing' recognizes that our individual experiences inform our sense of truth, and 'believing is seeing' recognizes that our preconceptions modulate what we experience in the first place," they wrote.

"In finding that Republican-inclined states show higher COVID-19 AE reporting than Democrat-inclined states, this study suggests that Republicans are more likely to perceive or report those AEs and that Democrats are less likely to," they concluded.

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States that lean Republican report more COVID vaccine-related adverse events, study finds - University of Minnesota Twin Cities