Don’t let Trump’s primary dominance deceive you — behind the curtain, the GOP is tearing itself apart

Keeping with his habit of being the worst person alive, Donald Trump reacted to his victory in New Hampshire’s Republican primary Tuesday by being a sore winner. Despite besting former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by 11 points, Trump screeched and whined as if she were a prosecutor handing down more indictments. He threatened to “get even” with her, mocked her clothes, and baselessly accused her of secret crimes. He even took his narcissistic injury out on Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., forcing Scott to say “I just love you” in a maximally humiliating fashion. 

Trump kept it up on Truth Social afterward, issuing all-caps posts about Haley like “DELUSIONAL” and “SHE CAME IN THIRD LAST WEEK!” 

He later claimed that anyone who offers Haley financial support “from this moment forth” will be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.” 

Part of this, of course, is Trump’s severe personality disorders, which have only intensified in recent months, likely due to his advanced age and the stress of being under 91 felony indictments, along with his numerous civil lawsuits. But he’s also likely freaking out in large part because his wins in both Iowa and New Hampshire, upon further investigation, aren’t as impressive as they look. Despite the headlines about Republicans lining up behind Trump, there’s significant evidence that, in fact, his leadership is causing the party to fracture and go to war with itself. Which is not where Republicans want to be going into a presidential election. 

NBC exit polls showed only 50% of voters in the New Hampshire GOP race self-identified as Republicans and 44% were independents. While proud Republicans broke heavily for Trump, Haley got 58% of independents, most of whom said they were “moderate” or “conservative.” These numbers suggest a large number of people who would have called themselves Republicans in the past have left the party and turned out to vote against Trump. 

This comports with analyses from Politico, the Washington Post, the Hill and Reuters that suggest that a small but significant number of Republican voters have left out of disgust for Trump, and won’t return until he’s gone. These people aren’t just sitting on their hands at home, either. Record turnout in New Hampshire was driven in large part by independent voters — many who leaned Republican in the past — who were trying to stop Trump from winning. 

Getting away from the numbers, there are other, more colorful signs that Republicans are at war with themselves. As Melissa Ryan at Ctrl Alt Right Delete reported Sunday, “Several state Republican parties are currently dealing with some form of crisis,” and in most cases, the conflict started because the MAGA power grab is being resisted by the few remaining Republicans not willing to see their party go full fascist. 

“They’re broke, plagued by in-fighting and power struggles, fixated on election denial conspiracies, and bogged down by lawsuits and criminal investigations,” Ryan writes. She flags the Florida GOP maelstrom in the wake of the Moms for Liberty-linked leader being investigated for rape. She links to November reporting from the Washington Post over bankruptcy issues and in-fighting in the GOP in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, all of which are struggling because election denialists are locking horns with party officials who understand this nuttiness scares off voters they need to win. All of this is also running off donors, who are wary of giving money to people behaving so erratically. 

As Ryan wrote in an earlier newsletter, Trump and the MAGA movement have “essentially given up on winning free and fair elections,” hoping they can cheat their way to victory instead. Or even, as January 6 showed, use violence to overcome that pesky “voters hate us” problem. It’s a radicalizing process that mirrors much of what we see in conservative Christian churches across the country. Their numbers are shrinking, because moderate and sensible people are leaving the pews out of disgust for right-wing politics. But the small number that remain get angrier and more vindictive, focused on “revenge” against everyone else for rejecting them, instead of moderating their views to be more attractive. 

The dysfunction in Congress reflects the way that the radicalism of MAGA makes it hard for Republicans to be a functioning political party. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., rose to power because of his MAGA bona fides and has signaled repeatedly that he’s taking his marching orders from Trump. But he’s already in the crosshairs of the same in-fighting dynamics that destroyed his predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. He’s getting abuse from extremists such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. They want him to threaten government shutdowns, which he is resisting — despite his own far-right politics — presumably because he knows those antics only hurt his party’s chances in an election year. 

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Wednesday, the intra-GOP conflict spread to Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who is leading the so-called “impeachment inquiry” into President Joe Biden. Comer has never really hidden that the investigation is fake. When asked by the New York Times about “investigating” a man who has done nothing illegal, Comer cracked that “the customer’s always right,” referring to donors and voters who want to see Biden harassed this way. The whole point of this has always been to create an illusion of scandal Republicans can use to deflect criticism from Trump’s actual crimes and misdeeds.

But that is not enough any longer for some in the party.  Anonymous Republican sources griped this week to the Messenger that Comer “continues to embarrass himself and House Republicans” and it’s “been a parade of embarrassments.” The complaint appears to be that he hasn’t turned up any real evidence. But again, he never seemed to expect any. The “inquiry” was fake from the beginning. The whole thing illustrates the tension caused by the MAGA takeover. What pleases the extremist base — fake investigations, the Big Lie, far-right theatrics — turns off everyone else, including some voters Republicans need to win. 

To outsiders, it would seem the answer to the GOP’s dilemma is obvious: Drop the MAGA nuts, quit with the outrageous lies and false accusations, and focus on trying to appear, if only a little, like a normal political party. But party leaders obviously feel they can’t do that, not without alienating base voters they need. So instead, they put their faith in the idea that Trump is a unifying figure who can secure victory in November by lining up all the warring factions behind himself. Watching one politician after another debase themselves by kissing Trump’s feet, one can see why they believe that. Of course ruling by fear is easier when the people you’re dominating depend on the party for their career. For ordinary voters who might otherwise vote Republican if not for their disgust, there’s good reason to think many of them are just walking away.