Opinion | Lindsey Graham's admission on Fox News about Trump blows up a big GOP argument - The Washington Post
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Republican Party's professional spinners are telling a pleasing little story about the 2022 elections. Democratic overreach on all kinds of issues, they say, will allow the GOP to lure back millions of suburban voters driven away by Donald Trump.
Winning back power, goes this story, turns not on feeding the radicalized GOP base whatever crackpottery will keep them energized, but on winning back the moderate middle, who will realize that the Real Extremists in Washington, D.C., are the ones running the Democratic Party, not the GOP.
After Sen. Lindsey Graham's startling admission about Trump on Fox News, this story should be a lot harder to sustain.
"I would just say to my Republican colleagues, can we move forward without President Trump?" the South Carolina Republican told Sean Hannity on Thursday night. "The answer is no."
Graham then referenced the battle among Republicans over whether to remove Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming from the House GOP leadership for demanding that Republicans fully renounce Trump's lies about the 2020 election.
"She's made a determination that the Republican Party can't grow with President Trump," Graham said. "I've determined we can't grow without him."
Noting that Trump had broadened the GOP's appeal to "working men and women" with his "economic populism" and "America First" agenda, Graham said: "If you don't get that as a Republican, you're making the biggest mistake in the history of the Republican Party."
Graham's comment has sparked some "LOL the GOP is a Trump cult" online snark. But it's a shockingly candid and illuminating admission in other, less obvious ways.
What Lindsey Graham revealed
First, it exposes the hollowness of the Trumpist economic populist nationalism Graham himself references. A handful of Republicans are crafting a "conservative populism" designed to keep alive this Trumpist appeal to the working class.
But if, as Graham suggests, keeping the Trumpist flame burning with the working-class voters Trump engaged requires keeping Trump himself happy by purging a senior leader for telling the truth about his attacks on democracy, then plainly these "economic populist" ideas don't have much force on their own.
Second, Graham's comments are strikingly revealing about the GOP midterm playbook. The New York Times reports that as part of this strategy, Republicans are mostly avoiding talking about President Biden's covid-19 relief bill and plans for big infrastructure investments, because they're popular.
Instead, Republicans are making the midterms all about supposed Democratic plans to pack the Supreme Court, defund the police and open our borders, as well as the Green New Deal, critical race theory and transgender Americans playing school sports.
As the Times reports, Republicans say they will use these issues in part to win back "moderate Republican voters and independents who broke with the party during the Trump years" but have been "alienated" by all this Democratic extremism.
But, as the Times notes, this effort to win back suburbanites will be badly complicated by the need to energize the large numbers of GOP voters who remain "fiercely loyal" to Trump and "want the party to represent his values." The blowup over Cheney has demonstrated that this is a "difficult balance to achieve."
Why Liz Cheney is such a problem
But why might Cheney be complicating this strategy? Because it reveals the radicalization of the Republican Party, in tandem with the GOP base's continued thraldom to Trump, exactly the figure who drove away those suburbanites in the first place.
The story Republicans want to tell is that Democrats are the real extremists, and centrist voters are returning to the GOP in horror. Instead, while Democrats do have to address perceptions of excess on things like wokeism and police reform, their main policies are winning broad mainstream approval, while Republicans are lurching to the extreme right to please their radicalizing base.
Now Graham has laid this bare with striking clarity. As Graham admits, Cheney needs to be purged precisely because the way for the Republican Party to stay competitive is to keep the voters Trump brought into the GOP coalition engaged. And the way to do that is to stop all this crazy talk about repudiating the idea that the election was stolen from him.
Interestingly, the career trajectory of Cheney's likely replacement in the House GOP leadership — Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York — confirms the point. As Paul Kane reports in a great piece, Stefanik was originally an orthodox Paul Ryan-type Republican, but her district's GOP voters shifted with Trump's rise.
Now Stefanik is merely pivoting along with the base and wants to be seen primarily as an "America First" acolyte. But here again, the truth is revealed: She isn't executing this pivot by talking more about "economic populism."
Indeed, leading conservative populists are actually skeptical of Stefanik's commitment to their policy views. Instead, Stefanik is pivoting with the base by becoming a leading proponent of the idea that Trump's 2020 loss is in doubt.
'Trump is the secret sauce'
GOP strategist Liam Donovan underscores the point, noting that fundraising appeals from Republican politicians are frequently about the victimization of Trump in one way or another, most recently focusing on Big Tech's alleged censorship of him.
"Trump is the secret sauce," Donovan told me. "The notion that Trump is being canceled or otherwise victimized is rocket fuel to the small-dollar base."
Forget about "economic populism." By Graham's own account, the mythology of Trump victimization is what's necessary to keep the base engaged. Without it, Trumpism as a mobilizing force cannot survive.
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Is it any wonder that the once Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln is now known merely as the gop?
True.. If Lincoln were alive today, he would be a far left wing liberal by his policies. The party of Lincoln is dead.
Ain't that the truth. Not even Reagan could make it out of the primaries today.
Yep, and Reagan would be livid about how buddy buddy the GOP is with Putin..
It certainly is a wonder since you are the only one that ever claims it.
If you can't post anything other than stupid memes, then you have ceded the argument.
Thanks for ceding.
That might be true if memes were all I posted.
It is not because I do not. That is the gop's biggest problem. They are so used to lying they do it as if it doesn't matter. It does matter!
probably 90 percent memes.
No longer the GOP, Liz Cheney is GOP, most of the rest are trying hard to be the.....
How pathetic.
In other words...rile them up and take their money....
... shaking down all his gullible suckers for another 5 years.
The far right wing media preach fear of the other 24/7.
Graham is right: The GOP cannot grow without Trump. Any fascist movement needs a charismatic Great Leader. Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Pinochet, ... ... Trump.
The well-being of the Republican Party is contrary to the well-being of the republic.
So how will they feel about a martyr after Trump is convicted and jailed for multiple crimes.
What are the charges?
To be honest, I think Governor Cuomo has a far higher chance of going to prison, but because he has a D next to his name, it probably would not happen.
Tax fraud, bank fraud, election finance fraud, obstruction of justice x 10.
They'll need credible evidence...where is it?
In Michael Cohen's indictment which names Trump as 'Individual 1', Mueller's report, Trump's tax returns and loan filings now in the hands of NY's AG.
Or the convenience of a dead Jeffery Epstein.
Or Trump proclaiming Putin is truthful and US Intelligence is not at Helsinki.
Not to mention the hundreds of billions in funding for Southwestern border security during Trump's tenure. Where did that money really go and how much of it is now safely sequestered offshore?
And there is much more.
I asked for the charges, not your feelings.
Now, post the charges.
Besides the sad attempt at deflection, where are the charges against Gaetz?
You see, JBB, most conservatives feel that if Gaetz is guilty of something, he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We don't operate on feelings like most liberals do.
Much unlike how libs have circled the wagon on many democrats accused of some sort of scandal, ie, the Virginia governor and Lt Governor, Cuomo, etc..
You get the picture
Or do you?
If liberals are so bad why do we keep winning?
What do you mean"keep"?
You won the presidency in 2020
You lost the 2016 election.
You lost Congressional seats in 2020.
I don't think "keep" means what you think it does.
Your demands lead me to believe that you've learned to deal with disappointment.
So after 20+ years of screaming that Hillary was a criminal, now the right wing wants charges? Fucking laughable.
And after 20 plus years of screaming that Hillary wasn't a criminal because there were no charges, now the left calls someone a criminal without charges? Fucking laughable.
The gop lost House, Senate and Presidency.
You are right. When I first encountered you, I thought you would be a formidable adversary.
How disappointed I was.
Remember those memes you claim to not post?
I'm not surprised that you view those who post facts as adversaries.
Perhaps actually addressing the topic rather than expressing your unending animus for ME would make you feel better.
Haven't found anyone from the left that has done that yet.
You've been here on NT far to long for that to be a truthful statement.
Trump victimization? Yeah. Everything and everybody he ever came in contact with.
Might be a bright spot though. In the end it is becoming even more possible that Putin will be burned. In Russia he is being forced to resort to sterner, more oppressive measures to maintain order. His popularity is sliding. The Russian people are impatient, tired of the status quo which has ignored them for too long.