A Preview of the Coming GOP Crackup?

The once-independent House Freedom Caucus attacks Liz Cheney for insufficient loyalty to Donald Trump.

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It was not quite 10 a.m. on Tuesday when Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz took the microphone at the House Republican Conference meeting and blasted the titular host of the gathering, GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney. A little more than two hours later, at 12:25 p.m., he posted a tweet about the confrontation, calling for Cheney’s removal. And by 1:25 p.m., Gaetz had recorded, posted, and tweeted a new episode of his podcast, “Hot Takes with Matt Gaetz.” 

The intro to the podcast opens with effusive praise for Gaetz from Donald Trump (twice) and Sean Hannity and the segments are broken up with the kind of “sizzle” sound effects you might expect in a home-produced middle school podcast. In the latest episode, Gaetz, who promises his podcast will give a “full-access, behind the scenes look” at Washington, offers a blow-by-blow account of the House GOP meeting Tuesday that most other Republicans would speak about only on background. 

Gaetz is blunt about his assessment of the problem: Cheney is insufficiently loyal to President Donald Trump. The Florida firebrand, who has a book out in September from Bombardier Books called Firebrand and last week promoted a new HBO documentary featuring him by tweeting “Move Over Joe Exotic,” suggests that Cheney is seeking publicity and approbation for her disloyalty to Trump. And this, he says, is disqualifying. 

“Jim Jordan—my colleague, my mentor, my friend—made the case strongly that Liz Cheney is hurting President Trump,” says Gaetz to open the podcast. “Jim pointed out Liz’s opposition to the president’s Afghanistan policy, the president’s Germany policy, the president’s response to coronavirus, her tweets attacking him and, frankly, her effort to try to oust Republican Thomas Massie.”  

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  1. Avatar photo
    Philbnichols

    I hate technology. Don't know how to email you, Steve Hayes, but you should know this:
    Ramesh is worth buying from Bloomberg.

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  2. Christopher Marks

    In a recent appearance on Special Report it looked like you had a picture of George Custer on your wall. Hero or relative?

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    Adam

    "Call me old fashioned, but I like generals who weren’t traitors."

    There he is! I've missed Sen. Sasse the last couple of years, but it is what it is.

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    Rick Harlan

    I foresee the GOP, broadly speaking, being divided three ways. Trump will take 25-30%, including the alt-right-before-it-was-cool and the entertainment wing. Pure Never Trumpers like the Lincoln Project and Romney, along with the lightly soiled, such as Ben Sasse, will account for 20%. That leaves the current party organization at about half-strength, comprising surviving incumbents, donors, professional campaign staffers and what's left of the party faithful.
    The Rump GOP will then embarrass itself chasing after the Trump loyalists, who will respond by sitting on their hands in 2022. The Never Trumpers will be shocked when the party doesn't greet them like Gen. MacArthur returning to the Philippines, but instead will scapegoat them in preference to having to admit "yes, you did tell us so."
    This will be exacerbated in the 2022 mid-terms as the factions try to vindicate themselves by being seen in front of the inevitable swing back to the right, given the conventional wisdom that the President's party loses seats in the mid-terms. The reality is that the GOP has far more seats to defend in the Senate that year, and there's little chance that the party deals seriously with it's problem with suburban middle class voters.
    I'm stopping here, because if I play this out any more, I'm getting to something like the Federalists in the 1810's.

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    Old guy named Bill (OGNB)

    About the Rep. Gaetz' podcast called “Hot Takes w/Matt Gaetz" - just the name of that podcast makes me cringe. "Hot Takes" belong with sports radio callers.

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    rlritt

    What's wrong with people? Not just Republicans. Why can't people respect differences of opinion anymore.

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    Scarlette Tarte

    I, as a liberal, am no fan of Liz Cheney's political philosophy. That being said, I want to make clear an observation from these last four years.

    It appears, for the very most part, the people really willing to take on Trump, both inside and outside his party, are the WOMEN.

    The men appear to be just craven "yes-boys" eager for the approval of the school yard bully, hoping a little of that so called "manliness glam" rubs off on them and their election chances.

    The women are the ones that actually appear to be principled (possible exception, Susan Collins of Maine) and unafraid to actually speak up on their disagreements and reservations that they have with this president.

    The Republican men better watch out...there are not many Republican women in the house or the senate, and they look like an all white fraternity...a very bad thing in a country that is diversifying by the minute. They need every single woman they have if they do not want to lose even more badly than they probably are going to.

    It appears very much like these men do not appreciate Liz's ambition. It is well known she wants to be the first Republican female speaker of the house...and she very well could do it. These men are also showing they do not have good political instincts...because Liz is squarely where the suburbs are on the issue of masks, Fauci, corona virus and a number of other issues. In other words, her instincts are better than this President's. One of the signs of a "good politician" (is there really such a thing, lol) is that they can "read the room". If these guys don't want to go down, perhaps they should start hewing to Liz's line, rather than Trump's.

    As far as Matt Gaetz goes, you Repubs have a real problem with that guy. Nothing but a hairdo. He comes across as an oily used car salesman, with a side hustle. And I think that cuban "adopted son" is going to come out and bite your party in the rear end, sooner rather than later.

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      Paul Hoppenjans

      That is a very helpful breakdown of identity politics as applied to the GOP. There are plenty of Y-chromosome carriers who objected and stood up to Trump, and most of them have been drummed out of the Corps (largely by the Freedom Caucus, I might add). I suspect that, if you are correct that females seem to be more "principled" and "unafraid to speak their minds," it could have more to do with gender shielding them from flak for doing so (thereby remaining on the stage to be heard) than it does the genetic predisposition you appear to posit.

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      2. John Cheyney

        Plus Nikki Haley and others. I agree many women have stood up to him but so have Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Paul Ryan.

        Well, maybe or maybe not on Ryan. I can give him partial credit but not a passing grade.

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          Scarlette Tarte

          Some men. But not even Democratic male mayors and governors have stood up to him quite the way the women have. The men seem to have that male ego recognition that attempts to give Trump a way to save face.

          The women don't spend time worrying about that. They just flat out call him out.

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  9. David D

    From a 2016 Politico Article:
    "A senior House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Trump's election "eliminated" the need for the Freedom Caucus, adding that Trump in the Oval Office means members will have no reason to buck the party’s leadership from here on out. "The Freedom Caucus only mattered when Obama was president," said the GOP lawmaker. "Now that Trump has won, they're irrelevant. They're not going to go against Trump; he's stronger in their own districts than all of them."

    While (Mark) Meadows conceded that he does see a “shift" in their situation, he argued it’s because “in the past what we have been asked to do is compromise our principles and our priorities in the hopes of getting something that was already watered down.” Calling the group “irrelevant” because it's not trying to tackle GOP leadership, however, “misses the whole reason we were established," he continued — to advance conservative ideas."

    I understand why Justin Amash left the group. Meadows of 2016 complained about compromising principles to get something done, and unfortunately for him, we have the benefit of hindsight. The Freedom Caucus became irrelevant not because the election of Trump made compromising their principles unnecessary, but rather the opposite. In order to work with Trump, you cannot have principles (melodramatic, I know), and that's what we've seen the HFC become.

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  10. Daniel

    Everything Trump touches turns to sh**. We were warned.

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