Donald Trump (74) has retired to Florida, but the ex-president is still a long way from being politically canceled. On Wednesday, he proved that the ex-president still has his Republicans under control, especially in the US House of Representatives: at Trump’s instigation, his opponent Liz Cheney (54) was voted out of her leadership position as number three in the parliamentary group. Her undoing was that she went by storm against Trump’s long-disproved claim that he had been fraudulently deprived of his re-election. Cheney called for a break with the “Trump personality cult” – which most of her group colleagues did not want to renounce.
Last week, the prominent Trump critic turned to her party in a flaming appeal in the Washington Post. The Republicans are faced with the decision to join Trump’s “crusade” against the legitimate election result or to side with the truth, wrote Cheney. Trump’s ongoing claims that the election was “stolen” could lead to renewed violence – as on January 6, when supporters of the elected president stormed the Capitol. The daughter of former US Vice President Dick Cheney warned of the damage to American democracy if Trump continued to undermine confidence in the elections.
«A war-inciting fool»
A survey by CNN at the end of April suggests that the ex-president has already done some damage in this regard. Seventy percent of Republicans polled believed that Democratic incumbent Joe Biden did not legitimately win the November presidential election. Fifty percent of Republicans believed there was solid evidence of this – even though the Trump camp failed to challenge the election results in dozens of courts. Trump – who had to leave the White House on January 20 – has never presented any evidence himself.
The Republican parliamentary group leader in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, 56, said on Wednesday: “I don’t think anyone is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that’s all over. ” Trump personally only claimed on Tuesday that the election had been “manipulated and stolen”. And it was McCarthy who pushed Cheney’s expulsion from the parliamentary group under pressure from the ex-president.
Fear of the party base
After the Capitol storm, Liz Cheney was one of the handful of Republicans who voted with the Democrats in the House of Representatives for impeachment against Trump. The ex-president has been looking for revenge for months. “Liz Cheney is a warmongering fool who has no place in the Republican party leadership,” he wrote a few days ago on his blog. After Cheney’s election on Wednesday, he followed up and called the MP “a bitter, terrible person”.
The MPs who punished Cheney should know for themselves that Trump’s allegations of fraud are unfounded. They fear the party base, which, according to surveys, is still largely loyal to Trump. Members of the House of Representatives are particularly susceptible to such sentiments: They have a much shorter term in office than Senators and are almost constantly campaigning because they have to vote every two years – the next time in the congressional elections in around 18 months. Trump has already announced that he will support internal party competition for Cheney’s seat in Wyoming. If he succeeds, Cheney would also lose her MP.
McCarthy’s Changes
Historically, a new president’s party tends to drop feathers in the first congressional elections after taking office. The Republicans expect chances to break the narrow majorities of Biden’s Democrats in both the House and Senate. Kevin McCarthy (56) wants to crown his career next year from the Democrat Nancy Pelosi (81) in the chairmanship of the Chamber of Parliament. He has now sacrificed not only Cheney to this goal, but also, according to critics, his credibility.
McCarthy initially made Trump jointly responsible for storming the Capitol, but now he is protecting him. As recently as February, McCarthy had held on to Cheney as a leader in the faction. After Trump declared that he was supporting his supporter Elise Stefanik (36) as a replacement for Cheney, McCarthy also stood behind the 36-year-old, who is now the favorite. McCarthy Trump paid his respects to Florida at the end of January. The New York Times wrote that McCarthy knew that the surest way to thwart his own goals would be to break with Trump.
Trump critics are becoming fewer and fewer
There are still Trump critics among prominent Republicans, but they are in the minority. “Driving Liz Cheney out of the leadership will not bring the Republicans an extra voter, but it will cost us some,” Senator Mitt Romney, 74, recently wrote on Twitter. The governor of the state of Maryland, Larry Hogan (64), spoke of “a kind of circular firing squad in which we only attack members of our own party”. Congressman and Cheney ally Adam Kinzinger, 43, assured that he would continue to “take action against the conspiracy theories that are being served to the American people.”
After being voted out of office, Cheney announced that she would continue the fight for her party and against Trump’s “dangerous lies”. She emphasized: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never comes near the Oval Office again.” Trump has so far left it open whether he wants to run again in the 2024 election. But he has always enjoyed the role of kingmaker too. With Cheney’s election, he has now recorded an important victory. The broadcaster CNN said: “The unmistakable message of Liz Cheney’s fall is that Donald Trump will be a dominant figure in the Republican Party and thus also in American life – most likely for years.” (SDA / vof)
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