GOP anti-socialism ‘Freedom Squad’ forms with Gimenez, Salazar
Miami’s Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar are part of a group of Republicans who are calling themselves the ‘Freedom Squad’ after beating Democrats.
Miami’s two new Republicans in Washington are opposed to nearly everything “The Squad” stands for — except the branding.
Two years after New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a group of left-leaning lawmakers gave themselves that name, a group of incoming Republican members of Congress are trying to turn Ocasio-Cortez’s
messaging on its head by calling themselves “The Freedom Squad,” with the
goal of pushing back anything they perceive as being too far left in Congress.
Carlos Gimenez, the former Miami-Dade County mayor, and Maria Elvira Salazar, a former TV journalist, are part of the group. All of the members left — or have family members who left — Cuba and Soviet Union-controlled Ukraine. The group, though informal, is an outgrowth of the repeated attacks during the 2020 elections by Republicans calling Democrats “socialists,” a line that wasn’t true in most cases but gained traction in places like Miami.
In addition to Gimenez, who was born in Cuba, and Salazar, whose parents were born in Cuba, the group includes newly elected members of Congress Nicole Malliotakis of New York, whose mother was born in Cuba, and Victoria Spartz of Indiana, who grew up in the Soviet Union before Ukraine became an independent country.
But unlike the original Squad or the hard-right Freedom Caucus formed in 2015 that sought to create change in Washington by pushing party leaders further to the left or right, the Freedom Squad is aligned closely with Republican party leadership and isn’t trying to reshape the party.
In Gimenez’s case, it was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who recruited him to run.
Gimenez said that unlike The Squad, which wanted to “fundamentally change this country ... people like me and Maria and Nicole, we’re not here to fundamentally change the country. We want to make the country better.”
All of the Freedom
Squad lawmakers flipped Democratic-held seats or held on to competitive seats.
Gimenez, Salazar and Malliotakis said the election results for House seats across the country, where Republicans gained at least eight seats and elected their most diverse class ever, is evidence that ideas like Medicare for All and reducing funding for law enforcement aren’t popular outside of a few urban districts. Democrats were expected to expand their House majority heading into Election Day, but instead lost at least seven seats. Eight seats remained uncalled by The Associated Press as of Friday.
The unexpected losses, including Salazar’s victory over Rep. Donna Shalala in South Florida — arguably the biggest upset in the country — set off a wave of criticism within the Democratic Party that it didn’t do enough to appeal to centrist voters in competitive seats.
After the 2020 election, Republicans said many voters are wary of expanding the size of government, and that Democrats are increasingly viewed as representatives of elite, urban interests in places like Miami-Dade County, where President Donald Trump performed 22% better in 2020 than he did in 2016.
“We’re going to be a force to reckoned with,” Salazar said.
Salazar and Gimenez said they’re talking with fellow first-year Republicans, a diverse class that
THERE’S NO FORMAL GROUP. IT’S JUST A NATURAL ALLIANCE THAT IS FORMING AMONG MEMBERS WHO HAVE SIMILAR EXPERIENCES AS MY FAMILY.
Newly elected member of Congress Nicole Malliotakis, whose grandmother lived in Hialeah and who also has family in Miami.
includes the first AsianAmerican Republicans elected in a decade and the only Black Republicans who will serve in the next House of Representatives, to think about ways to influence policy. For now, their goals mostly center on vocally opposing any perceived leftward shift within the Democratic Party. But telling the country that conservative ideas can appeal to voters of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds also will be a big part of their agenda.
Gimenez and Salazar have already made national TV appearances since their victories. Malliotakis, who flipped a Staten Island-based seat held by a Democrat, announced the formation of the informal “Freedom Squad” shortly after Election Day.
“There’s no formal group. It’s just a natural alliance that is forming among members who have similar experiences as my family,” said Malliotakis, whose grandmother lived in Hialeah and who also has family in Miami. “I knew Maria and Carlos prior to being elected — the Cuban politicians, we
keep in touch. Republicans need messengers that can tell these stories and explain to the American people what exactly socialism is.”
Two years ago, Shalala and Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel- Powell were part of a Congress that included a record 127 women, and growth was fueled nearly exclusively by Democrats. But Republicans like Salazar and Malliotakis will contribute to an even more diverse Congress in 2021 after at least 142 women were elected in November.
Congressional Republicans in 2021 will have the smallest percentage of white males in modern history, just four years after Trump won after accumulating high levels of support from white voters. And Trump improved his standing with many minority groups across the country in
2020, despite losing the general election.
“What’s nice about this group is we’re so diverse,” Malliotakis said. “It’s the largest class of Republican women. You have Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans to be our messengers, to be out there and connecting with the suburban moms, the Latino community, the African-American community, the Asian-American community.”
Malliotakis and Gimenez said GOP party leadership, despite being all white, deserves credit for supporting and promoting a wide range of candidates in 2020.
“I think that the new class of Republican freshman is a much more diverse class than probably they’re used to,” Gimenez said. “We have a lot of women. We have a lot of minority women. We look a lot more like America and I think that’s really good for the Republican Party. I think that this may be a bellwether kind of class for the party.”
After Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats lost seats like Gimenez’s in part because incumbents like MucarselPowell didn’t fully embrace Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, Mucarsel-Powell responded that Democrats need to recognize that minority voters like South Florida Latinos aren’t a monolithic bloc that will vote blue.
“There were many factors: a targeted disinformation campaign to Latinos; an electorate desperate to re-open, wracked with fear over the economic consequences; a national party that thinks racial identity is how we vote,” Mucarsel-Powell tweeted. “It’s not just about socialism.”
But Gimenez, Malliotakis and Salazar said House Republicans for at least the next two years will be united in opposing the sort of policies favored by Ocasio-Cortez, and that Democrats’ smallest House majority in decades will give them little wiggle room to pursue left-leaning policies if moderates oppose them.
“One of the things that ginned me up to run was doing battle with [OcasioCortez],” Gimenez said. “I want to do battle with them. I want to fight them in the arena of ideas. I think their ideas and where they want to take this country is completely wrong. I’m not here to battle every Democrat. I am here to battle [The Squad]. I will do that with my last breath.”