Fear of Disaster for American Democracy – VG

When Donald Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden in November, many asked the following questions:

What happens to the Republican Party now? Will they continue with Trumpism or will they return to “being themselves”, a classic conservative party?

Will the forces that supported the former president’s baseless allegations of election fraud win power, or will voters like Mitt Romney take the lead in the party?

It is still “the early days”, as they say in the United States, but so far the signs are pointing in a clear direction, according to two American experts VG has spoken with.

– At the moment, it seems that Trump maintains his control over the party, concludes the principal investigator of the Department of Defense Studies, Svein Melby.

Lasted a week

– There is little, if anything, from the past six years to indicate that they intend to save the party from their radical right wing, says Associate Professor at Bjørknes Høyskole and researcher on American politics, Hilde Restad.

It is true that he saw an opportunity for change, as he believes that there were signs of movement in parts of the party after the lost Senate elections in Georgia and after the attack on Congress on January 6. Both his Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, and his House leader, Kevin McCarthy, said Trump was at least partially responsible for his supporters taking over Congress.

Then there was silence in the barn, as we say here on the rock.

– Now it seems that the small window has closed again, says Restad, who is thus in line with an analysis written by CNN’s Stephen Collinson, where he concludes that the post-Trump period of the party lasted exactly one week.

The evidence

Among the “evidence” cited by Melby, Restad, Collinson, and other analysts in the United States as a sign that the party is choosing Trumpism, we find these:

• A large majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives voted not to approve the so-called electoral vote that formally won Joe Biden, because they supported Trump’s lies about voter fraud.
• This week’s vote in the Senate, where 45 Republicans believe that a lawsuit against Trump should not be filed, because they claim that it violates the Constitution since he has already resigned. Which is contrary to what most American constitutional experts have said. Among the 45 is the powerful Mitch McConnell, whom several analysts have said is crucial in getting enough votes to convict Trump for inciting his supporters to attack Congress. A verdict now seems highly unlikely.

• Trump’s staff is said to have greenlit a campaign against the 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted to bring him to trial. Now they are ready to be challenged in the 2022 midterm elections by Trump loyalists.
• Kevin McCarthy traveled to Florida on Thursday where he had a meeting with Donald Trump about how the recently resigned president can help get the house back in 2022. According to CNN sources because he believes the best way to raise money is to get Trump involved.
• There is virtually no party condemnation against newly elected congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after the findings, among others, that Media Matters has made after a deep dive into her past. Among other things, it has emerged that he expressed his support for the execution of Democratic Top Democrat Nancy Pelosi. On the other hand, there has been a strong internal condemnation of Liz Cheney, the most important of the ten Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted for the Supreme Court.

Trump is in control

Hilde Restad believes that Taylor Greene’s lack of conviction is in harmony with the way the party has treated right-wing radicalism for the past six years:

– Silence, and acceptance growing stronger, he says.

In light also the decisions to vote against the approval of electoral votes and against the Supreme Court are sometimes seen by many.

Svein Melby has a theory about why these things happen; Donald Trump still controls a large part of the Republican electorate.

– That’s how Lindsey Graham said; they don’t have a chance to regain a majority in Congress without Trump’s voters. It is the attitude that characterizes the representatives. Then they will act as they think Trump wants, to comply with these, he says.

Radicalization

But what creates problems within the Republican Party is that there is also a large body of conservative voters who are not particularly enthusiastic about Trumpism. Therefore, both options, whether to follow in Trump’s footsteps or distance himself from him, can make victory in the election difficult.

Melby believes this could make the Republicans a permanent minority party. Something that 2008 John McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt also expressed in an interview with VG last fall.

Hilde Restad believes that if Trumpism emerges victorious from the party’s internal divisions, it could end “catastrophically for American democracy.”

– Then, the only chance for Republicans to continue winning elections will be to continue with the suppression of votes, the rhetoric of us against them and divide and rule. In the long run, this will lead to a radicalization of the Democrats, where they leave hopes of cooperation and rather change the rules in Congress so that they, if the Democrats have a majority, do politics without Republican votes, says the American expert.

New party

Melby does not rule out that it will eventually end with the creation of a new party, the Conservative Party. It is true that it was not created by Donald Trump and his followers, as has been speculated.

– You don’t need it, as it seems now It is probably his critics in the party who should seize that opportunity and establish a new traditionally conservative party, Melby believes, and therefore he is in the vein of Mike Madrid, a Republican analyst who is critical of Trumpism.

While it may go against the division of one party, the other can sit back and enjoy the potential collapse.

– Democrats are the ones who rub their hands now. They can campaign against Trump and get the influx of frustrated Republican voters who can no longer bear this, says Melby, who nonetheless points out that how all of this will play out and what the long-term impact on American politics will be is really. completely unclear.

Perhaps, he speculates, the value of Trump’s news will decline as the Biden administration receives increasing attention and the former president is banned from various social media. Then maybe the support around you will also disappear. And it is not clear if an heir is ready.

– In any case, it will be very exciting to follow how this goes, says Melby.

Three options

Hilde Restad says we have a first indication of where this really takes place when senators go to vote in the Supreme Court case.

– This is a golden and really quite obvious way to exclude Trumpism from the party, you think.

See VG’s graphs on the alleged Senate vote:

The next two main options, he explains, will come in the by-elections in just under two years and in the presidential elections of 2024.

We’ll see if they take steps to prevent extreme candidates, such as QAnon supporters, from being nominated for the 2022 congressional elections and who they will nominate as presidential candidate.

She, to repeat what she started, already has a suspicion of which direction she is heading:

– There is little, or nothing, of the last six years that indicates that they intend to save the party of their radical right.