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Westneat: MAGAfication of GOP has party under pressure
By Danny Westneat
Published: April 20, 2024, 6:01am
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I see that the right-most flank of the national Republican Party is baying to take out another GOP speaker of the House, for the sin of being too into compromise.
I also see that the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is agitating to take out Washington’s last Republican in Congress who is vying for reelection, Rep. Dan Newhouse of Sunnyside. Newhouse is a “weak and pathetic RINO,” Trump wrote. “Newhouse has to go!”
Finally, I also see that a GOP campaign consultant is warning that Washington Republicans may be about to “burn down the house” — their own house.
“The Republican Party in Washington will be irreparably fractured … and any shred of legitimacy or influence — to include fundraising ability — will be lost,” predicted Christopher Gergen, who ran the GOP’s last governor campaign in 2020.
What is stressing out Republicans so much? In one word: Trump.
In more words: What we’re watching play out is the crackup of the old GOP. It’s disintegrating due to Trumpism, or the MAGAfication of the party.
Gergen was warning what might happen if GOP delegates at their state convention in Spokane this weekend endorse Semi Bird, the MAGA outsider candidate for governor. Bird is competing for the party’s backing with former GOP Congressman Dave Reichert. Bird is known for being recalled from the Richland School Board by voters after he tried to defy state mask rules during the pandemic.
“You have two really very, very different Republicans here,” Gergen said in a video accompanying an op-ed he wrote in the Lynnwood Times. The article warned Republican delegates that if they back Bird, who in Gergen’s view “cannot win the governor’s race,” it will tear the party apart.
“The backlash will be severe,” he said. “If we don’t stop fighting among each other, Washington will be a blue state forever.”
The same dynamic now is going on in the 4th District congressional race, where Newhouse is the 10-year incumbent. Because the state’s only other Republican federal officeholder, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Spokane, is retiring, Newhouse suddenly is the last bulwark of elected GOP clout left in the state of Washington.
You’d think that would be important, but Trump wants revenge. He has opted to throw the Republicans’ one stable race in this state into turmoil by endorsing political neophyte Jerrod Sessler over Newhouse.
All parties have internal squabbles, and maybe these will be smoothed over. It’s not normal, though, for parties to repeatedly consider deposing their own House speakers and incumbents. This party is at risk of not even being the Republican Party anymore. It’s becoming the Trump party.
Why does this matter? Because we need a stable and sane Republican Party. A good example is the U.S. House, which is preoccupied with perpetual MAGA tantrums as the world burns. Plus, we’ve all witnessed Democrats pushing it too far from time to time; everyone needs a check and balance.
Beyond all that civic-minded stuff, this is like watching a thousand-car freeway pileup in slow motion. Recently, Newhouse was the latest GOPer to swallow his dignity and announce he would back Trump once again. His reward for offering to take one for the team? Trump humiliates him.
Everything Trump touches dies, as the saying goes. The local GOP may not be perishing, but given the above, it doesn’t seem too healthy.
“We need to focus on getting some Republicans elected — establishment or conservative,” Gergen said.
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