GOP eyes path to power by making peace with far right
NEW YORK — Over the course of 24 hours this week, House Republicans voted to defend a freshman conspiracy theorist with a history of violent rhetoric and a mainstream party leader who backed Donald Trump’s impeachment.
The seemingly conflicting moves signal that Republican leaders, particularly in the House, are betting they can return to political power by cobbling together a coalition featuring both proTrump extremists and those who abhor them. The votes also suggest Washington Republicans are unable, or unwilling, to purge far-right radicals from their party, despite some GOP leaders’ best wishes.
“I do think as a party, we have to figure out what we stand for,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., warning Republicans to “get away from members dabbling in conspiracy theories.”
House Democrats voted Thursday to do what their Republican counterparts would not the night before, stripping first-term Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., of her committee assignments and leaving her effectively powerless to influence policymaking. The move follows outrage over Greene’s use of social media to promote bigotry, anti-Semitism and violence against Democrats linked to the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory.
The Georgia congresswoman delivered a speech on the House floor before Thursday’s vote claiming she stopped believing in QAnon in 2018. She declined to apologize for her specific claims, which included suggesting a wealthy Jewish family may have used space lasers to ignite California forest fires for financial gain.
“I never said any of these things since I have been elected for Congress. These were words of the past, and these things do not represent me,” Greene said, concluding her remarks by likening U.S. media reports to QAnon conspiracy theories.
QAnon’s core theory embraces the lie that Democrats are tied to a global sex-trafficking ring that also involves Satanism and cannibalism.
The GOP’s high-stakes reckoning comes as the party struggles to move past Trump’s norm-shattering presidency and the deadly attack on the Capitol he inspired in its final days. With Democrats now controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, the Republican Party’s political success — and maybe its survival — depends on its ability to unify its warring factions. And whether Washington Republicans like it or not, those who think like Greene make up a significant portion of the party’s base.
Democrats celebrated the perils of their rivals’ political dilemma, particularly after all but 11 House Republicans voted to defend Greene’s committee assignments on Thursday. But as they cling to a thin majority in the House and Senate, Democrats face structural challenges of their own ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who leads the House Republican campaign arm, accused Democrats of focusing on Greene to draw attention away from President Joe Biden’s left-leaning early policy moves, including those designed to fight climate change that threaten jobs in the fossil fuel industry.
“This is the same QAnon playbook they tried in 2020, and they lost 15 seats,” Emmer said. “I promise this cycle will be even worse for them.”
In a nod to the party’s anxious establishment wing, House Republicans also voted by secret ballot Wednesday night to preserve Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney’s place in party leadership. Trump loyalists had called for her removal after she blamed Trump for inciting last month’s attack on the Capitol and voted to impeach him.
But it was the House Republicans’ refusal to distance themselves from Greene that threatened to haunt the party for the foreseeable future.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene will be the face of the party, the face of the midterms, the face of the extremists,” said Steve Schmidt, a Republican strategist who co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, which expects to be a major player in the 2022 midterms.