The widespread and coordinated plan to divide the Republican Party has failed, and it’s a major reason why Democrat prospects for the 2022 midterms are so bad.
Separating Republican officials from their growing coalition of voters and the issues they care about has been the Washington establishment’s goal for several years now. The “divide and conquer” plan is being run by the Democrat Party, its propaganda press, and former leaders of the Republican Party such as Liz Cheney, who see how the GOP’s new composition and approach has threatened or destroyed their hold on power.
The D.C. partnership has worked overtime to try to marginalize, demonize, and make toxic those Republicans who don’t follow the establishment’s rules for how supposedly good Republicans, like Mitt Romney, act. They have been running the Jan. 6 show trial and warning Republicans in office to oppose many of the nominees that Republican voters selected during the primary season. These Beltway denizens watched in horror in recent weeks as Republican leaders have done the opposite, descending on tight races throughout the country to help all Republican candidates, not just those viewed as non-threatening to the D.C. establishment.
Sens. Tim Scott, Tom Cotton, and Ted Cruz went to Ohio to help J.D. Vance in his bid to be the next senator of Ohio. Sen. Rick Scott and a succession of Senate colleagues went to Georgia to help Herschel Walker. The worst thing for the anti-GOP effort was when Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin endorsed Kari Lake in her battle to become Arizona’s next governor. Republican candidates aren’t toxic. They’re even enjoying the support of former Democrats.
Tulsi Gabbard — a former Democrat congresswoman, former candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, and former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee — endorsed Lake, Republican Blake Masters in his Senate race against Mark Kelly in Arizona, and Republican Don Bolduc in his Senate race against Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire.
Republicans Campaign for Republicans
It was too much for partisan Chuck Todd to take on Sunday, turning over a full third of his lackluster show to Cheney, so they both could push Democrats’ 2022 campaign message that Republicans are a “threat to democracy.” Todd’s first question to Cheney was straight-up Democrat propaganda talking points. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to call it Democrat propaganda word salad: “I don’t want to presume anything, but is your number one issue threats to democracy, as a voter?”
His second question — a defamatory statement, not a question — was that there are two “election deniers” on the Wyoming ballot. “Election denier” is the false and juvenile propaganda term the media and other Democrats use to describe Republicans who had problems with the 2020 election. Literally no one “denies” that there are elections. While contesting and opposing election administration is an incredibly common practice, and while the 2020 election included hundreds of radical changes to the manner and timing of voting, Democrats have tried to argue that any and all opposition to that election’s administration — but only that election’s administration — makes one an “election denier” and a “threat” to “democracy.”
Incidentally, if for some reason you thought Cheney’s concern about elections was in any way legitimate or principled, this week she once again showed it wasn’t when she laughed uproariously about how Jamie Raskin, her colleague on the Jan. 6 show trial, wrote a book about how her father had stolen an election. She has not critiqued Raskin for his views nor suggested that they make him — or any of his many Democrat colleagues who have objected to Republican victories — unacceptable. She has not condemned the Democrats’ years-long campaign and information operation to reject the legitimacy of the 2016 election, a campaign joined enthusiastically and to great effect by the entire Democrat Party and its corporate media.
Todd described Republicans campaigning for Republican candidates as putting their “party over country,” another utterly childish phrase used against Republicans who oppose Democrats’ political goals. Democrats who campaign for Joe Biden and John Fetterman, despite their radical positions and mental struggles, are not described by the propaganda press as putting “party over country,” for example.
In any case, Youngkin dismissively waved off Cheney’s absurd demand that he not campaign for fellow Republicans by saying, “I believe that every state deserves a Republican governor and Arizona deserves another Republican governor.”
Cheney said Youngkin and other Republicans campaigning for Republican candidates were making “really indefensible decisions.” She even endorsed Democrats, claiming without evidence that Republican candidates “are more dangerous right now.”
Media activists who seek Democrat victories cheered her on. Tens of millions of Republican voters — who do not want Democrats to keep control of the House and Senate — did not cheer her on or find her in any way compelling.
Kari Lake’s Advice for Mitch McConnell
Jonathan Karl had Kari Lake on his show, where he aggressively pushed Democrat talking points. The first words from the supposedly grown man were, “Election deniers in a battle to take over the GOP,” as he highlighted Republicans who had lost primary elections by not taking concerns about elections seriously.
“I know you guys want to act like the Republican Party is fractured, it is not,” Lake was pictured as saying.
She was also asked about the attempt to divide Republicans over on Fox News, where I’m a contributor. “Are you getting the support that you would expect from the Republican Party?” Maria Bartiromo asked Lake. “I know that early in the season, Mitch McConnell said that it’s 50-50 that Republicans take the Senate, and he said it’s partly because of bad candidates. You’ve been campaigning a lot with Blake Masters, who is running for Senate in Arizona. What are your thoughts on the Republican Party’s support to your campaign and contenders?”
After Trump-endorsed candidates swept most of the primary races earlier this summer, McConnell had thrown a temper tantrum, criticizing the choices Republican voters had made. It was a perfect example of how “divide and conquer” strategies have been helped along by Republicans themselves, including the least popular politician in the country.
Lake’s answer was noteworthy. “I think Mitch McConnell needs to wake up and realize that the Republican Party is about we, the people. It’s not about political elites like Mitch in D.C. He’s got to start representing the people. And we’re going to actually strengthen this party, Maria,” she said.
“We have an amazing movement here in Arizona, and it’s the people of Arizona stepping forward, realizing that they have to take their government back. And I think Mitch should actually embrace this. I am receiving support from the RNC, the Arizona GOP, and the Republican Governor’s Association has stepped in to help out, running some ads that are helping me. And so I appreciate any help that I get. But the real support I’m getting is from the people.”
The Real Reason Cheney’s Going to War Against Republicans
On Sunday, Cheney pivoted her campaign against Republicans to Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is the strongest contender to become Republicans’ speaker of the House. Prior to her removal from the Republican Party, Cheney had hoped to hold the position.
Last week, McCarthy made the completely sensible comment that support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia could not be a “blank check.” That is literally true and would be true even if the United States hadn’t already spent close to a whopping $80 billion on the effort, far outpacing the support of actual European countries on the European war. While all sane people recognize the financial resources the United States can spend on a different country’s war are limited, Cheney completely lost her mind over the statement. She ranted that this view was “isolationist,” a policy of remaining apart from the political affairs of other countries. Again, this is after $80 billion has been spent, which is at least $80 billion more than an actual isolationist policy would have spent.
She also — again — called the policy of not writing a “blank check” to another country “dangerous,” a sign that he would “no longer stand for freedom,” and she even went with the completely deranged left-wing talking point that this means he was “pro-Putin.”
The woman sounded completely crazed and unhinged, as if she’d completely lost the plot and needed psychological assistance. It is a reminder, though, that the only issue Cheney has ever cared about is forcing the Republican Party to practice a politically toxic and destabilizing interventionist foreign policy.
Cheney will of course continue her war against the Republican Party that rejected her foreign policy, but even fewer people will support it after her string of failures in the last two years. Try as she might to tear it apart, the Republican Party is strong — and unified against divisive partisans like Cheney and her establishment friends.
