In Trump's Final Days, Lines Are Drawn for a Republican Civil War - WSJ - 0 views
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Less than two years from now, after this week’s attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election has long since played out, here is a plausible scenario:
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But that outcome will be challenged by Republican rebels, who, taking a cue from what is happening right now, will charge that the election was “rigged” by the establishment, and go to court to try to overturn it.
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The irony is that Republicans might instead be uniting in celebration over what actually was a good outcome for them in the 2020 vote, and allowing attention to focus on Democrats’ own considerable internal ideological schisms. Instead, the party is being pulled apart in the last days of the Trump term.
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Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, who aspire to lead the Trump army whenever Mr. Trump isn’t there to do so himself, have engineered a scenario in which each of their colleagues will have to go on record either favoring or opposing the president’s effort to reverse the election.
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They have done so in defiance of Mr. McConnell, creating in the process a no-win scenario for a series of their colleagues up for re-election in 2022— Roy Blunt of Missouri, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Marco Rubio of Florida, John Thune of South Dakota—in which they have to take a stand that either infuriates Trump loyalists back home or energizes Democrats and many independents against them.
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Former House Speaker Paul Ryan released over the weekend a blunt statement urging his former colleagues not to attempt what many are about to try: overturn the election results. “Under our system, voters determine the president, and this self-governance cannot sustain itself if the whims of Congress replace the will of the people,” Mr. Ryan wrote. “I urge members to consider the precedent that it would set.”
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As that tweet shows, there is an important ideological struggle lying beneath the skirmishing. Mr. Trump essentially ran for president in 2016 as an independent populist, with no use for a Republican establishment that largely opposed him. Upon prevailing, he turned the party away from traditional conservative principles of free trade, lower government spending and limited executive authority and toward more of a working-class agenda.
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The unanswerable question is whether Mr. Trump can maintain his hold on the party once he is out of office. Scott Reed, a longtime GOP strategist, argues that “Trump wannabes need a new paradigm, for there will never be another Trump.” He predicts Mr. McConnell, a traditional conservative, will emerge as the party’s clear leader.
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“The election showed us that GOP policies and ideas worked up and down the ticket, but it was the personality that cost us the White House.”