This power, in turn, can be seen in the decision of state and local county parties to censure and denounce Republican members of the House and Senate who voted in favor of impeachment or conviction.
On Feb. 6, the Wyoming Republican Party voted not only to censure Representative Liz Cheney, but also called on her “to immediately resign from her position,” and declared that the party would “withhold any future political funding.” It should be noted, however, that even as her support in Wyoming eroded, her Republican colleagues in the House, guided by the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, rejected a move to take away Cheney’s leadership post.
One of the more revealing recent polls of Republican voters tested favorable/unfavorable views of Cheney, the chair of the House Republican Conference, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon supporter when elected to the House last year from Georgia. Greene has won a peculiar kind of fame with her pre-election declarations that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was guilty of treason.
Greene suggested Pelosi could be executed, CNN reported. “She’s a traitor to our country,” Greene declared in a video posted on Facebook.
She took an oath to protect American citizens and uphold our laws. And she gives aid and comfort to our enemies who illegally invade our land. That’s what treason is. And by our law representatives and senators can be kicked out and no longer serve in our government. And it’s, uh, it’s a crime punishable by death is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.
A February 6-9 Economist/YouGov poll asked voters for their ratings of Cheney and Greene. Among Republicans, Cheney was viewed unfavorably, 52 percent to 20 percent. Greene, in contrast, was viewed favorably 40 percent to 24 percent.
There are a variety of angles from which to view the McConnell-Trump feud.
Rich Lowry, editor of National Review writing at Politico, argues that the
fight isn’t exactly over the soul of the Republican Party, but it is over whether there will be significant space in the party for figures other than Trump to have notable influence over its direction.
Lowry acknowledges
at the outset, this contest isn’t a fair fight. McConnell, a.k.a. “Cocaine Mitch,” has acquired considerable new street cred on the right over the years with his hard-nosed work on judges. Nonetheless, there are very few rank-and-file Republicans interested in storming any hills for Mitch McConnell, while many of them would scale K2 for Donald Trump.
McConnell’s task, according to Lowry, is not to beat Trump in a head-to-head fight, but “to work to block electorally poisonous, or at least risky, Trumpists from winning Senate primaries, say, in the most extreme example, Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia.”
In this kind of fight, McConnell brings his experience opposing divisive nominations during the Tea Party era a decade ago, and “an ability to focus on long-term goals that the easily distracted Trump, driven by personal animosities, does not” — not to mention McConnell’s fund-raising prowess.
There is no doubt, Lowry concluded, that
Trump is a potent political figure. Yet, his draw isn’t transferable to other Republicans when he’s not on the ballot, and he failed to get above 47 percent of the vote in two national elections against lackluster opponents.
In fact, the evidence suggests that his draw is transferable.