There’s No GOP Civil War

Hugh Hewitt: “There’s a loud, persistent group of Trump critics who apparently never learned the concept of ‘sunk costs,’ and there’s former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon, who knows that there’s profit and power to be found in exploiting the anger of the Never Trumpers and the anti-Never Trumpers. But this doesn’t amount to a civil war, only a series of skirmishes on the fringes of the party and among its chattering Manhattan-Beltway class estranged from President Trump.”

“Four data points have set off this chorus on the imaginary intra-party conflict: two speeches and two retirements. That and Bannon’s dislike of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), which is unfathomable except as a grudge. McConnell is easily the most effective GOP Senate leader of my adult life, and the likely confirmation this week of four more circuit court judges underscores that conclusion.”

“The flimsily constructed ‘civil war’ narrative is built out of discrete episodes that have in common only the calendar.”