Tag: GOP still the cult of Trump

Wisconsin GOP leader gushed that Trump’s ‘power’ was on par with ‘Thor’s hammer’ in groveling letter

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The Republican president of the Wisconsin State Senate sent a groveling letter to former President Donald Trump last week after the twice-impeached former president criticized his party for not overturning the results of the 2020 election.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Wisconsin State Sen. Chris Kapenga last week tried to smooth over tensions between the Wisconsin GOP and the former president after Trump accused them of “working hard to cover up election corruption” and “actively trying to prevent a Forensic Audit of the election results.”

“Wisconsin Republican leaders Robin Vos, Chris Kapenga, and Devin LeMahieu, are working hard to cover up election corruption, in Wisconsin,” Trump ranted in a statement last Friday. Continue reading.

GOP increasingly balks at calling Jan. 6 an insurrection

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A growing number of Republican lawmakers are refusing to say that the Jan. 6 insurrection was actually an insurrection.

Nearly two dozen GOP House members voted against legislation this week that would award Congressional Gold Medals to police officers who defended the Capitol that day, in part because it describes the mob of then-President Trump’s supporters who were trying to stop Congress from ratifying the 2020 election results as “insurrectionists.”

“They were protesting. And I don’t approve of the way they protested, but it wasn’t an insurrection,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Continue reading.

The soul of the post-Trump GOP isn’t in D.C., it’s in the nation’s statehouses

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WASHINGTON — If you really want to see today’s post-Trump Republican Party in action, don’t look at Washington.

Instead, take notice of what’s happening in GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country.

They’re passing new restrictions on voting, even in states Trump won in 2020. “Florida’s Legislature [on Thursday] passed an election bill Thursday that includes restrictions on drop boxes and voting by mail,” NBC’s Ben Kamisar writes. Continue reading.

Republicans embrace Trump in effort to reclaim Senate

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The top Republican candidates hoping to win back control of the Senate have embraced former President Trump as a kind of running mate in the first weeks of their campaigns, a recognition that the ousted president is still the party’s best fundraiser and most recognizable figure even from exile in Florida.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who has Trump’s endorsement in the race to replace retiring Sen. Richard Shelby (R), mentioned the former president seven times in a press release announcing his candidacy. His leading rival, former Ambassador Lynda Blanchard (R), recently held a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

In Missouri, former Gov. Eric Greitens (R) promised to defend Trump’s “America first policies” less than a minute into an interview on Fox News in which he announced he would run to replace retiring Sen. Roy Blunt (R). Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R) mentioned Trump twice in his own announcement video. Continue reading.

Outfit Running Arizona ‘Election Audit’ Insists On Secrecy, Rejects Transparency

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The firm running an audit of election results in Arizona’s largest county is refusing to make public the procedures it is using in its review of more than 2 million ballots cast in the state in the 2020 election — even though a judge ordered it to do so because of concerns raised over the legality of its process.

Cyber Ninjas — which is run by a Donald Trump-supporting conspiracy theoristwho pushed lies about voter fraud in the 2020 election — said in a court filing on Sunday that it should not have to release its procedures, citing that they are “confidential” and subject to legislative privilege, the Arizona Republic reported.

A judge on Friday had ordered the firm, tapped by Republican state Senate President Karen Fann to oversee the audit, to release its procedures after concerns were raised by the media and Arizona’s secretary of state about whether it was following state election laws. Continue reading.

GOP memo urges ‘rebrand’ as ‘the working class party’ — by embracing ‘Donald Trump’s gift’

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Although former President Donald Trump has been gone from the White House for two months, his far-right brand of pseudo-populism — which was greatly influenced by Patrick Buchanan — continues to have a major effect on the GOP. And this week, according to Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, two House Republicans — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana — discussed a memo calling for the GOP to market itself as the “working class” party in the 2022 midterms.

The March 30 memo, written by Banks and addressed to McCarthy, is titled “Cementing GOP as the Working Class Party.” And it argues that Republicans, in 2022, need to embrace Trump voters and Trump’s ideas.

In the memo, Banks — who heads the Republican Study Committee — emphasizes, “Our electoral success in the 2022 midterm election will be determined by our willingness to embrace our new coalition. House Republicans can broaden our electorate, increase voter turnout, and take back the House by enthusiastically rebranding and reorienting as the Party of the Working Class…. There is an embittered and loud minority in the GOP that finds our new coalition distasteful, but President Trump’s gift didn’t come with a receipt.” Continue reading.

Trump’s reemergence poses risks for GOP, media

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Former President Trump‘s reentry into public life at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Sunday exacerbates challenges for political leaders in both parties, as well as the media.

Washington has been a relatively Trump-free zone for the first 40 days of President Biden‘s administration, particularly with Trump banned from Twitter, the megaphone that allowed him to gin up news cycle after news cycle. 

The speech to a faithful crowd in Orlando, Fla., won’t bring a return to the last four years, but it did establish that Trump remains the overwhelming leader of the Republican Party and that Republicans in Congress contending with the Biden administration will have to constantly be looking over their shoulder. Continue reading.

CPAC signals a new disturbing era for the Republican Party

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While some Republican lawmakers are fighting to return to some form of traditional political normalcy, other lawmakers and members of the political party are pushing for a new direction. 

The first night of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which featured some of the most contentious Republican lawmakers like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), signals the Trump era may be far from over. When Cruz took the stage, he made his perspective quite clear as he suggested that he will remain a Trump loyalist for years to come.

“There’s a whole lot of voices in Washington that want to just erase the past four years, want to go back to the world before,” Cruz said. “Let me tell ya right now: Donald J. Trump ain’t goin’ anywhere.” Continue reading.

‘Worshipping the golden jackass’: CPAC mocked for displaying giant gold Trump statue

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The Conservative Political Action Conference is set to begin this weekend, and early indications are that much of it will be dedicated to worshipping former President Donald Trump.

In fact, as a video posted by Bloomberg News’ William Turton shows, CPAC will even feature a literal gold statue of the former twice-impeached one-term president, who will also be a keynote speaker at the event.

Many Twitter users noted that a gold Trump statue would seem to violate biblical commandments against idolatry, and it drew comparisons to the golden calf idoldestroyed by Moses in the Old Testament. Continue reading.