Mutiny on a broad front
Republicans want to get rid of Trump
By Roland Peters
12/15/2022, 6:37 p.m
Ex-President Trump wants to go back to the White House, he is applying for the candidacy. But he does pretty badly in polls. A mutiny is forming in the US House of Representatives and has broken out openly in the Senate. Many Republicans no longer want Trump.
What Donald Trump really wanted to prevent has happened: resistance. Republicans don’t want him anymore. They have had enough of the former US President, who just a few weeks ago submitted his renewed application for re-election with a great deal of pathos had announced, so that no one stands against him early. But almost nothing is the same as before, when Trump still had the Republicans firmly in his grip, when he was able to silence party colleagues in Congress with a few public gossip and derogatory nicknames, and pushed entire political careers to the abyss.
Meanwhile, the mutiny against the party’s supposed fixed point is forming across the board. In polls, Republicans say they’ve had enough, and in the House of Representatives, some Republicans are considering conspiring with the Democrats against faction leader and Trump ally Kevin McCarthy, who wants to become Speaker of the House. His colleague in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, also makes a clear statement. He’s not the only one.
No longer speaks to Trump: Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
(Photo: REUTERS)
McConnell’s hostility to Trump is no secret, but the senator is not a speaker. Now however criticized he the “quality problem” with the candidates in November, who had supported the ex-president in the Senate race – and thus prevented other candidates with better chances.
McConnell cited the states of Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire as examples. The result in November: the Democrats won these seats and, somewhat surprisingly, even strengthened their wafer-thin majority in the Senate. Since then, other Republican senators have ventured out of cover. According to Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, “half of the senators” among Republicans are considering running for the upcoming presidential nomination because they feel that Trump is vulnerable. One senator said of Trump “he’s losing oil”.
More and more senators would turn away from the ex-president, writes the news site “The Hill”. McConnell, who should be an important contact for Trump, has not spoken to the ex-president since his election defeat by Biden. So far, only Tommy Tuberville from Alabama has expressed his support for Trump.
DeSantis is running away from Trump
Trump is undoubtedly vulnerable, as the results of several polls show: According to a poll for the newspaper “USA Today”, 61 percent of Republicans do not want to see Trump as a presidential candidate, but someone else. About Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. Politically, he is not far removed from Trump, but younger and more approachable. If there were a single Republican fight vote, DeSantis would win it by a margin of 14 percentage points, according to a Wall Street Journal poll. In “USA Today” it was even 23 points.
Currently the greatest threat to Trump’s ambitions: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
(Photo: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire)
If Trump were to prevail anyway, according to both polls, he is likely to fail again in a repeat of the 2020 duel against Joe Biden. And this despite the fact that the president is not particularly popular in the country: around 52 percent are dissatisfied with Biden’s administration, only around 42 percent are satisfied. Trump only does well with voters who describe themselves as “very conservative”. Those who consider themselves more moderate want it less. DeSantis, on the other hand, would clearly outperform Biden.
Trump has lost his winning luster among his fellow politicians. In the newly formed House of Representatives, the Republicans will only have a majority of five votes starting in January. If there are a few renegade MPs, they could stop McCarthy’s ambitions. So far, no one has dared to come out with their name, the situation is too dangerous for that. But behind the scenes, two ways are being discussed to prevent Trump’s allies from speaking the United States House of Representatives, according to US media.
First, if McCarthy doesn’t get the votes he needs, his fellow party members could present a more moderate candidate who can win the votes of all Republicans. Second, should both Trump allies and opponents block each other for several rounds, moderate Republicans and Democrats consider jointly nominating a consensus candidate from both factions to achieve the necessary majority.
revolution possible
Republicans doubt Trump’s ally Kevin McCarthy.
(Photo: AP)
That would not only be a revolution for the Republicans, who would thus free themselves from Trump’s iron grip, but also an immense, historic success for Biden and the Democrats. At least since 1913, the candidate of the majority faction has always been elected speaker of the parliamentary chamber. Either way, should McCarthy not become a spokesman, another spokesman from outside the Trump wing could block the planned committees of inquiry into Biden.
It is also up to Trump that his ally is even in the discussion. Among Republicans, the ex-president has been identified as one of the main culprits for the poor performance in the congressional elections. He then dined with racists and even challenged the Constitution, scandalous to many conservatives. Whether or how much support this cost Trump can hardly be resolved. But undoubtedly there is great opposition to it. Even if it is not clear if or when he will be successful.
It’s more than the polls and the last election that make conservatives doubt the ex-president. Just two years after his narrow entry into the White House, Trump received a lesson in the 2018 congressional elections – despite excellent economic data, which for many Americans are the most important argument for their voting decision. He lost the House of Representatives, but this was not considered dramatic since it was considered a regularity of the election cycle.
Two years later, Trump lost the entire Congress and especially the White House to the Democrats. The president-elect had lost his supposedly infallible compass for the “silent majority”, which was no longer one. He keeps turning the needle, never admitting defeat, dragging Republicans into his maelstrom of insinuations, insults and lies. And now, after November’s disappointing results, Trump is arguably the weakest he has been since his 2016 presidential nomination.