Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass announced that he has officially left the Republican Party, invoking a version of famous quote from his former boss, Ronald Reagan: “I didn’t leave the Republican Party; the Party left me.”
Most Republicans See Democrats As Enemies
A new CBS News/YouGov poll finds 59% of Democrats say that they tend to view Republicans as political opponents, while 41% view them as enemies.
In contrast, 57% of Republicans say that they tend to view Democrats as enemies, while 43% view them as political opponents.
GOP Image Slides Giving Democrats Strong Advantage
Gallup: “Americans’ opinions of the Republican Party have worsened in recent months, with 37% now saying they have a favorable view of the party, down from 43% in November. This decline, along with a slight increase in the Democratic Party’s positive ratings, to 48%, gives the Democrats a rare double-digit advantage in favorability.”
GOP Eyes a Working-Class Future
“Republicans, long reliant on big business and the rich, see a post-Trump future centered on working class white, Hispanic and Black voters,” Axios reports.
“This is a substantial shift, born of necessity and the post-Trump reality. It would push Republicans further away from the interests of corporate America and traditional conservative ideas like entitlement reform.”
Also key: A new YouGov poll finds Republican voters no longer coalesce around tax cuts and entitlement reforms.
Why Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
“In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations,” the New York Times reports.
“An analysis of January voting records by The New York Times found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts said the data indicated a stronger-than-usual flight from a political party after a presidential election, as well as the potential start of a damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.”
Most GOP Voters Want Trump to Take the Lead
A new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds a 74% majority of Republican and Republican leaning-independent voters say Republican officials should follow Donald Trump going forward, compared to 26% who want to see them go in a different direction.
GOP Registration Drop Is Part of Larger Trend
“In the weeks since the January riot at the Capitol, there has been a raft of stories about voters across the country leaving the Republican Party. Some of the numbers are eye-catching and suggest that the GOP may be shrinking before our eyes, but a closer look at the numbers over time shows that a larger change has been working its way through the party for some time,” NBC News reports.
“In fact, when one takes into account shifts in the composition of the Democratic Party, the real story seems to be more about a deeper remaking of the nation’s two major political parties.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Somebody who has provoked an attack on the United States Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral votes, which resulted in five people dying, who refused to stand up immediately when he was asked to stop the violence, that is a person who does not have a role as the leader of our party going forward. We should not be embracing the former president.”
— Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), in an interview on Fox News.
What Kind of GOP Opposition Is Biden Facing?
John Harwood: “If the GOP remains an honest voice for a wide swath of Americans in the democratic competition of ideas, President Joe Biden has reason to follow his instincts toward common ground on Covid-19 relief and the rest of his agenda. But if the GOP has devolved into something else — dishonest, detached from reality, bent on gaining power by undemocratic means if necessary — he can justify skipping the time and effort.”
“Biden has straddled the question so far. But Republican leaders plainly fear the party risks forfeiting its historic claim as the mainstream conservative alternative to Democratic liberalism.”
Wyoming Republicans Censure Liz Cheney
The Wyoming Republican Party voted to censure Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) Saturday for her vote last month to impeach then-President Donald Trump, the Casper Star Tribune reports.
Three Factions of House Republicans
Philip Bump: “By now, a month into the 117th Congress, we can discern three separate but fluid groups within the Republican caucus based on how they’ve voted on key issues. One group we’ll call the Trumpists, and it is made up of those Republicans who declined to impeach Trump, voted against stripping Greene of her committee assignments and backed the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election by voting against counting the electoral votes submitted by Arizona and/or Pennsylvania.”
“Then there is what we’ll call the accountability caucus, the group of Republicans who voted either to impeach Trump or oust Greene. Those are two very different issues, of course, but each vote demonstrated a willingness to criticize another Republican against the will of party leadership.”
“The third group we can call the pro-democracy Republicans, those who stuck with the party on impeachment and Greene but who also rejected the effort to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“The party is his. It doesn’t belong to anybody else.”
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), quoted by CNN, on former president Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican party.
GOP Eyes Path to Power by Embracing Far Right
“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 AP reports.
“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 pro-Trump extremists and those who abhor them. The votes also suggest that Washington Republicans are unable, or unwilling, to purge far-right radicals from their party, despite some GOP leaders’ best wishes.”
Trump Planning Revenge Tour Against Republicans
Former president Donald Trump is planning to embark on a nationwide speaking tour specifically designed to hurt Republicans who have backed his impeachment, Insider reports.
Trump wants to target the 10 House Republicans who voted for his impeachment last month, as well as any Republican senators who speak out against him at next week’s trial.
Schiff Says the GOP Has Become ‘Essentially a Cult’
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told CBS News that the Republican Party has “become essentially a cult” in recent years, evident from its embrace of President Trump and controversial figures such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
Said Schiff: “Sadly, it has already become essentially a cult, not just of QAnon, but a whole range of conspiracy theories orbiting around Donald Trump. Which of course is a disaster not only for the Republican Party, but is a disaster for the country. We really rely on two functional parties for our system to work, and right now we don’t have that.”
The Clowns Are Firmly In Charge
Michael Gerson: “Apart from the ethics of the matter, there is a political case to be made for the firm repudiation of dangerous crackpots. As a rule, such people are easy to motivate and organize because they are, well, dangerous crackpots. But American political movements — conservatives in the 1950s and ’60s, liberals in the ’60s and ’70s — suffered from public identification of their cause with radicalism. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton succeeded, in part, by getting beyond scary ideological caricatures of their parties. Does McCarthy really want to fight his campaign for the suburbs with Greene as the face of the GOP?”
“It was beyond good luck that Republicans, after the Capitol assault, were given some dramatic ways to break with violent, anti-democratic radicalism. They had the opportunity to strongly repudiate Greene. And they could convict Trump of inciting an uprising. Now it seems likely that Republicans will throw these chances away. The clowns, it appears, are firmly in charge.”
A Head-Spinning Night In Republican Politics
Playbook: “If you’re trying to figure out the direction of the Republican Party after Wednesday’s circus of a five-hour (!) House GOP Conference meeting, good luck. One hour, Republicans were rallying around — and literally standing to applaud — the QAnon congresswoman. The next, they voted to protect the avatar of the Republican establishment from Donald Trump cronies itching to boot her from leadership.”
“A day that was supposed to be clarifying was anything but. Yet many House Republicans emerged feeling more confident about their political fortunes — a bit of a mystery to us.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“The worst thing is that we have become really kind of a grotesque caricature of what the Republican Party has traditionally been. We were founded as the party of the union, of holding the country together. And now we have got on this populist tack, which is very much us against them.”
— Former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO), in an interview with PBS Newshour.
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