Throughout Donald Trump’s one term as president, conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin repeatedly warned that extremism would ultimately cause the Republican Party to shrink. And in a column published this week, Rubin stresses that the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building is causing the GOP to shrink even more.
Trump, in 2020, ran a rally-the-base campaign — and he continued to be popular with his hardcore MAGA base. But extremism, Rubin has been warning Republicans, alienates many others. And she makes her case by citing recent reporting by National Public Radio and The Hill.
Last week, The Hill reported that “more than 30,000 voters who had been registered members of the Republican Party have changed their voter registration in the weeks after a mob of pro-Trump supporters attacked the Capitol.” And this week, NPR reported, “In the week from Jan. 6 through Jan. 12, about 4,600 Republicans changed their party status in Colorado. . . . (Colorado Public Radio) was able to contact dozens of them by tracking changes in the state’s voter file…. The number of people changing parties spiked immediately after the Capitol breach. The same phenomenon is playing out nationwide. News outlets documented about 6,000 defections from the party in North Carolina, 10,000 in Pennsylvania and 5,000 in Arizona.” Continue reading.