Trump’s grip over Republicans hardens as party cleaves
to election ‘big lie’
Donald Trump speaks to the media outside the White
House on 12 January 2021.
Far from losing influence over the party, critics say,
Trump has in fact burrowed far into its DNA so that the two are now all but
inseparable
David Smith
David Smith
in Washington
@smithinamerica
Mon 10 May
2021 07.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/10/republicans-trump-election-big-lie
Ron
DeSantis was exultant. “The way Florida did it I think inspires confidence; I
think that’s how elections should be run,” the state governor told reporters
last November. “Rather than us be at the centre of a Bush v Gore in 2020, we’re
now being looked at as the state that did it right.”
This boast
of a smoothly run election just six months ago makes DeSantis’s actions this
week all the more curious. The governor suddenly found it necessary to impose
sweeping reforms that limit mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes – and signed
the new law live on the Fox News network on Thursday with no other media
allowed.
It was
perhaps the most brazen example yet of a renewed assault on American democracy
crafted and led by former president Donald Trump and his Republican allies,
electrified by the false claim “the big lie” of a stolen election in 2020.
Far from
losing influence over the party, critics say, Trump has in fact burrowed far
into its DNA so that the two are now all but inseparable. And far from treating
the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol as a catharsis to break the spell,
Republican-controlled state legislatures are using his false claim of election
fraud to justify a sweep of anti-democratic measures across America.
On Friday
the Texas house of representatives backed a bill to bar election officials from
sending voters unsolicited mail-in ballot applications, while giving
party-affiliated poll watchers greater access to voting sites. Restrictions on
voting rights have also been signed into law in Georgia and Iowa with similar
moves afoot in Ohio and Michigan. Activists warn that people of colour will be
disproportionately prevented or discouraged from voting.
Sylvia
Albert, voting and elections director for Common Cause, which campaigns for
expanded voter access, told the Associated Press: “We are seeing the strong
effect of President Trump’s big lie. We are seeing the Republican party go
all-in on supporting him and his lies. We are seeing them use this opportunity
to create deliberate barriers to voting for Black and brown voters. It’s
un-American.”
We are seeing the Republican party go all-in on
supporting him and his lies
Sylvia Albert
Hopes that
Trump would fade quietly into retirement and golf at his Mar-a-Lago estate in
Florida were shattered last week. Having remained relatively marginal during
Joe Biden’s first hundred days, which restored a calm of sorts to Washington,
the former president launched a new web page and posted several tirades
reviving his preposterous claim that he was the true winner of the 2020
election.
Notably he
challenged Democrats and the media’s use of the label “the big lie” as
shorthand for his bogus allegations of election fraud, stating: “They are right
in that the 2020 Presidential Election was a Big Lie, but not in the way they
mean.” His own definition, he said, is the stolen election itself, “the
greatest Fraud in the history of our Country!”, even bigger than the Russia
investigation and his two impeachments.
Trump’s
characteristically judo-like move – flipping the weight of his opponents
against them – was reminiscent of the way he appropriated the phrase “fake
news”, once used to describe misinformation widespread on the web, and
weaponised it to go after the media.
The 45th
president also used his playbook to sow doubt and distrust by egging on his
supporters’ legally meaningless investigations of an election that he lost by
7m votes six months ago. The Republican-controlled senate in Arizona, for
example, has ordered a private recount of 2.1m ballots in Maricopa county,
hiring a Florida-based contractor called Cyber Ninjas.
The justice
department has expressed concern about ballot security and potential voter
intimidation arising from the extraordinary audit. Katie Hobbs, Democratic
secretary of state in Arizona, warned in a letter that parts of the recount
“appear better suited for chasing conspiracy theories”, including one that
thousands of fraudulent ballots were flown in from Asia using paper with bamboo
fibres.
But the
former commander-in-chief is deadly serious about it. Maggie Haberman,
Washington correspondent for the New York Times, tweeted: “Trump is obsessed
with the controversial Arizona audit and has told people he thinks it could
undo the election.” In fact the audit cannot change the outcome of the election
because the results were certified months ago in the state and Congress.
In another
statement this week, Trump recycled his spurious claims of late night vote
“dumps” in Michigan and Wisconsin and demanded a review. Perhaps most
bizarrely, he also saluted Windham, a town of 14,000 people in New Hampshire,
where it transpired there had been an undercount of Republican votes in the
election for the state legislature.
It would be
easy for sceptics to dismiss 74-year-old Trump as a sore loser ranting into the
void. But according to a CNN poll, 70% of Republicans believe that Biden did
not win enough legitimate votes to be president. From the 30 state house
controlled by Republicans to the party leadership in Capitol Hill, Trump’s
power and influence now appear absolute and fealty to the “big lie” is the
ultimate test of devotion.
Senator Ted
Cruz of Texas this week proudly tweeted a photo of himself dining with Trump at
Mar-a-Lago, assuring fans: “He’s in great spirits!” Dissenters, by contrast,
face hostility and political exile. Senator Mitt Romney, the sole Republican to
vote to impeach Trump twice, was loudly booed and called a “traitor” at a Utah
Republican party convention.
Liz Cheney, the party’s number three in the House of
Representatives, is set to be ousted this week after urging colleagues to
renounce the ‘cult of personality’.
Liz Cheney,
the party’s number three in the House of Representatives, is set to be ousted
this week after urging colleagues to renounce the “cult of personality”.
Senator Lindsey Graham countered that Republicans cannot “move forward” without
Trump, telling Fox News: “I’ve always liked Liz Cheney, but she’s made a
determination that the Republican party can’t grow with President Trump. I’ve
determined we can’t grow without him.”
Cheney
voted to impeach Trump after the US Capitol riot that left five people dead but
her greatest offence appears to be denouncing “the big lie” for “poisoning our
democratic system” and her call for true conservatives to abide by the rule of
law. This is tantamount to heresy in the Republican party of 2021.
Kurt
Bardella, a former spokesman and senior adviser on the House oversight committee,
said: “What we’re seeing is the new really ideological core of the Republican
party is fidelity to this lie that fueled an insurrection attempt on January 6.
It’s something that I think is even bigger than Trump at this point because
it’s really rooted in truth versus lies and it says a lot that the only
‘transgression’ that Liz Cheney is guilty of is telling the truth about the
results of a free and fair election.
“When that
is cause to purge somebody from your leadership ranks, what that says about
your party is that you are codifying your status as an anti-democratic force in
America. The things that are happening here are so radical that if they were
happening anywhere else in the world, we would call that a lurch towards extremism,
a lurch towards the ingredients that result in terrorism.”
The
imminent demise of Cheney suggests that Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in
the House, and other senior Republicans have concluded that throwing in their
lot with Trump is key to winning next year’s midterm elections, which often
depend on a party’s most committed supporters.
There was
evidence for this in Texas last weekend when Susan Wright, the widow of the
first member of Congress to die after contracting Covid-19, advanced to a House
runoff for her late husband’s seat with Trump’s endorsement, whereas an avowed
anti-Trump candidate crashed and burned.
Now, as his
return to the spotlight gathers pace, the reality TV star turned politician is
set to endorse more “America first” candidates committed to “election
integrity” and return to campaign rallies. He is also said to be considering
another run for the White House in 2024 – a further stress test of America’s
perilously fragile democracy.
Tara
Setmayer, a political analyst and former Republican communications director on
Capitol Hill, said: “They learned no lessons whatsoever and it’s clear that the
Republican party can no longer be considered a party that supports our American
democracy. It’s no longer a party that values our constitutional institutions
because everything that Donald Trump represents and what he continues to spew -
implying that there was some massive fraudulent election that delegitimises Joe
Biden – is so antithetical to everything that the Republican party claims to
stand for.”
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