The rumors have been flying for weeks. Civil war is about to break out among Georgia Republicans. An entire slate of MAGA candidates is forming to challenge our incumbent officials, and no matter which sides win, we’ll ALL be losers.
A few weeks ago, my personal Congressional sedition leader Jody Hice announced his challenge to our beleaguered Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Raffensperger has been under fire from Trump loyalists since November when he notoriously refused to help Trump overturn the states election results despite being asked to personally by the former guy. Hice was undeterred by the attempted insurrection last January and still lodged his protest against the certification of electoral college results, as I noted at the time (https://ordinary-times.com/2021/01/07/an-open-letter-to-my-congressman-jody-hice/.) In his announcement, Hice stated he would “instill confidence in our election process by upholding the Georgia Constitution, enforcing meaningful reform and aggressively pursuing those who commit voter fraud.” Raffensperger has not indicated whether or not he intends to run for reelection, but he did respond to Hice’s announcement that “Few have done more to cynically undermine faith in our election system than Jody Hice. We saw in January what Georgia voters will do to candidates who use that rhetoric.”
My take: Hey, at least I won’t have the embarrassment of Jody Hice as my Representative any more!
And today, another candidate threw his MAGA hat in the ring. Former State Representative Vernon Jones announced his challenge to Governor Brian Kemp, warning that “The left better get ready for this right hook and a right uppercut, because we’re coming.”
How inspirational.
For those of you not familiar with the Georgia political scene, Kemp surprised many with his 2018 win. He had been stuck between 2nd and 3rd place in a 5 man race until his controversial campaign ads showing him pointing a shotgun and a young teen playing his “daughter’s boyfriend” and driving his own pickup truck to go round up illegal aliens. During the runoff election against then Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle, Kemp received the coveted Trump endorsement (supposedly at the urging of the former Senator and Governor Perdues) and went on to beat Cagle by a roughly 2-1 margin. But Kemp has also become persona non grata in MAGA world for his failure to overturn the election results.
I wrote all about Vernon Jones and his long reputation for trouble after the Republican party made the poor choice to allow him a speaking slot at last Summer’s convention. (Read here so I don’t have to rehash the whole thing: https://ordinary-times.com/2020/08/23/dear-rnc-this-guy-is-not-your-friend/)
Challenges to incumbent politicians is practically unheard of here in Georgia. I can’t remember a serious challenge in either party in my entire lifetime. But these are not normal times. This is about payback. And the only issue isn’t who has been a Republican longer (as Kemp’s supporters are attempting to frame it) it’s who has been a more loyal sycophant to Donald Trump.
We no longer have a Republican Senate incumbent to challenge, having managed to lose not one but TWO seats during last January’s runoff. But word is that former UGA football hero (and major Trump supporter) Herschel Walker may run.
Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan has apparently had enough and already announced that he will not be seeking reelection.
Chances of the MAGA slate taking down the incumbents is slim. Republicans don’t like change and the majority will likely continue to support the current office holders (but I’m sure Governor Kemp’s support of the recent controversial election law was in part motivated by his desire to appease the MAGA hats.) But for the next year, there’s going to be an ugly primary fight and it will inevitably pit the Trump supporters against the more traditional Republican voters. And no matter who wins, I’m betting the party loses. In November, the number of Biden voters who voted Republican down ticket may have been small, but it was enough to swing a close election. In January, the number of Republicans who didn’t bother to vote at all in the runoff (likely due to the former president’s claims of election fraud) was likewise small, but enough to swing a close election. Republicans are no longer a lock to win here. Many former supporters have left the party because of Donald Trump. Demographic changes have benefitted the Democrats. A brutal Republican primary will have no winners.
Actually, there will be winners: Stacey Abrams and the Georgia Democratic party.
That sounds like an outcome the GOP richly deserves and needs.Report
Yeah… if it continues, it’s the birth of a third party. What’s weird and confusing is that the ‘new’ party is called Republican and the old party is ‘other’ or ‘not-Republican’ – so far, at least.
Otherwise it is following similar patterns where the new party poaches chunks of the old party while old party struggles to re-define or re-align.
In the end, the new-party causes the old party to lose and lose bigly until the realignment crosses over. It’s sort-of why we don’t get 3rd parties… which is the undertone of the post. A lament. I see it as nature healing.Report
Indeed, I got to see it in Canada first hand in my teenage years when the right wing shattered into the Tories and the Reform party after Kim Campbells’ brief tenure. That took about a decade and, to be frank, the Canadian right wing was nowhere near as decayed as the American right has become. Then again Canada is a multi-party parliamentary system whereas the US is a two party duopoly so obviously the process will be very different.
And, of course, the Canadian right schismed over questions tactics and success really. Whereas the American right is having a crisis of core principles. I have no fishing idea what the GOP is going to look like in a couple cycles.Report
The 1968 peace movement, the Moral Majority of the late 70’s, the Tea Party, the Bernie Bros…this happens. Sometimes they’re successful, sometimes they manage to bring a new issue or approach to the party, and sometimes their energy gets dissipated.
This one doesn’t appear to be motivated by ideology, but by retaliation. If so, the solution is simple: the party has to encourage the targets of the retaliation not to run again. Put up a clean slate of normies against the revolutionaries. Even the “normies” don’t have to be particularly normal, as long as they constitute a de-escalation.Report
But will they just shift their target?
Do they really want retaliation? Or just an outlet for their upset? If the latter, they’ll keep firing until they run out of steam.Report
I see this as the negative side of not being able to have 3rd parties.
The problem (as I see it) is that the ‘normies’ of the republican party a’la Romney are, in fact, the biggest losers… there’s no returning to Romney. In fact, Romney has remade himself into an anti-Bain-anti-Capital-Romney.
New Romney wouldn’t vote for Old Romney… but New Romney isn’t a ‘normie’ Republican, but a New-as-yet-undisclosed-party Romney.
Does that make sense? The ‘normie’ Republicans really don’t have a home because there isn’t a party for them. And going back to the aughts would put them in the political wilderness of a head with no body. There isn’t a slate of normies that would stem the tide… a slate of ‘Chamber-of-Commerce” normies would probably escalate the rout.Report
I agree. There’s this dysfunction, the gap, between the libertarianish elite money folks and the actual voting masses of the GOP and it’s become too severe to ignore. They papered over this disconnect with the culture war and with militarism but those causes don’t work as well any more. Militarism has been utterly discredited for probably a generation or two now and the culture war has A) only suffered a series of major defeats in public opinion and B) the voting masses of the GOP have realized that the elites don’t actually share their culture war goals.
What comes next? I have no idea. But the 90’s and aughts form of Republitarianism, like militarism, may be discredited for some time. Probably until/unless the easy money times lead around to something like stagflation again. And even if that does come about, that’d call more for a revival of genuine libertarianism than it would the peculiar phenomena of repiblitarianism.Report
I don’t know what comes next either; Rubio is interesting to watch because he’s so beholden to the old-regime (money) that whenever he tries to straddle a normie/next-gen position he does so with such transparent strings being pulled that you can see how the rhetoric won’t result in new policies… just a gloss on the old.Report
My whole life I’ve been hearing similar descriptions of the imminent breakdown of the GOP. Actually, slightly longer than that, from what I’ve read about the 1964 election. The Dems are less frequently characterized in that way but it happens. And some day, the prediction will come true, and I’m sure the forecaster will be praised for his insight.
I’m increasingly convinced that history moves in a way that the “Great Man” and “Forces of History” people both get a little bit wrong. There are tensions that anyone can see, and there are key moments of free will that you can’t forecast. The Muslim world was messed up for years before the Arab Spring, but one action triggered what followed, and the particular twists and turns of that story could all be understood in retrospect but not predicted as they happened.
So if you want to tell a story about the Republican Party bursting asunder…yeah, it’s possible.Report
Sure… the GOP is dead, long live the GOP… that’s the reality of a two-party Duopoly. I’m not making any sort of grand theory claim – certainly not for something so petty as a political party.
I do think it curious if someone were to think that belonging to the party of Goldwater was the same thing as the party of Trump… I’d say it’s more like standing in a river… you can say your are in the Republican River, but the issues, people, and flow are totally different.
Some? Many? Most? don’t necessarily notice the difference one year over the next… but after a while, all that’s left is party affiliation and Some? Many? Most? realize the Party is or isn’t what they think it ought to be.
Which is why I’m not predicting the end of the Republican Party… just that the shift is more likely to leave the Normies behind than bring them to the front in a ‘corrective’ move – because what’s the Normie platform that ends the ‘retaliation’ (to borrow your term)?
In what way is 2021 Romney not another retaliation against Normies? Plus, there aren’t slates of Normies lining up to contest the takeover… is Eric Cantor lining up to take back the seat he lost to Brat who lost it to a Democrat? I’d suggest that the defections against the normies pre-dates Trump… but Trump as the manifestation of the symptom doesn’t make the symptoms go away when he leaves.
The Normies were the original problem… Trump is just a bad outcome.Report
I also think that the whole “fashionable” thing is currently in the process of biting the Democrats in the butt.
It is fashionable to have a “D” after your name on the ballot.
Having your kids go to school with those kids? Much less fashionable.
So you are stuck with some of the most Progressive cities in the US having so-called “Apartheid” school districts.
It’s fashionable to call yourself a Democrat (or a Socialist).
Actually being one is not required.Report
For Democrats, it’s nice to pick-up increasing numbers of ex-Republican voters; it is less nice when those voters influence the Democrats in directions that make them look like ex-Republicans who switched Soc-Con platitudes for Soc-Lib platitudes.
We don’t have a Middle political identity, we have a Middle anti-identity.Report
Yeah, like Pinky, I have been hearing constant predictions of the imminent demise of the GOP, and they keep holding on to power.
I’m especially doubtful of this alleged “civil war”.
Where have any non-Trumpists won a primary or attracted strong support?
Maybe Georgia will be the first- But so far, the Trumpist faction seems to have an absolute uncontested grip on the GOP.Report
Most of my adult life (and I’m 67) I have read that the old conservatives who kept the GOP going were all going to die Real Soon Now.
The fastest growing age demographic in the US is those who are 85+. The second fastest growing is those who are 65-84.Report
All you need to do to answer that question is look at who is NOT running for reelection next cycle and which state officials are already in trouble.Report
Right? I’m not seeing the downside here.Report
The only takeaway the Republicans have from the Jan.6 attack on democracy is that next time they will try harder.Report
Sadly yes – and Georgia changes little of that calculation.Report
Don’t call it a civil war; it’s the war between the slates.Report
I have had considerable sympathy for Raffensperger since I read that he ran for Secretary of State on a “Georgia’s business registration, licensing, and tracking system is an antique and a disgrace and should be fixed” platform and that he has done a good job of that. Then backed into the election buzzsaw.Report
Backed into an election buzzsaw while doing the principled thing.Report
The lesson there is not to do the principled thing;his natural constituency doesn’t like that kind of thing.Report
We used to call that a profile in courage and honor the person.Report
We used to call that doing your job.Report