The MAGAfication of the GOP in WA has the party under pressure

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, former President Donald Trump, is agitating to take out Washington state’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 state 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, for Loren Culp when Democrat Jay Inslee won his third term.

Wow, 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 — that’s what all three of these stories are about.

Gergen is 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’s competing for the party’s backing with former GOP Congressman Dave Reichert.

Bird is known for being recalled from the Richland School Board by his own 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” due to a lack of broader, establishment support, 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 Washington state.

You’d think that would be important, but Trump wants revenge. Newhouse ranked as the 64th most conservative of the 435-member U.S. House last Congress, so he’s hardly a “RINO.” (That’s right-wing smack talk meaning Republican in Name Only.) Because Newhouse voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Trump has opted to throw the Republicans’ one stable race in this state into turmoil.

Trump last week endorsed a political neophyte, Jerrod Sessler, over Newhouse. Sessler has never held elected office. He’s an election denier who made waves recently by allegedly threatening to shoot a government inspector at his property and for calling for the hanging of Dr. Anthony Fauci during the pandemic. So he slots right into the MAGA profile.

“Jerrod Sessler is MAGA all the way, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement — He will never let you down!!!” Trump wrote in his endorsement on Friday.

It raises the prospect that the party’s delegates could endorse Sessler over their own incumbent congressman. No one seems to know if that might happen. But last month, when the GOP organization in the district’s largest county, the Yakima GOP, had its convention meeting, they voted 75% for Sessler to just 12% for Newhouse in a straw poll.

All parties have internal squabbles, and maybe these will be smoothed over. (Gergen is urging the party not to endorse anyone until after voters get their say in the August primary.) 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 and revolts 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, despite having voted to impeach him. His reward for offering to take one for the team? Trump humiliates him.

Everything Trump touches dies, as the saying goes. Can’t say the local GOP is 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. “Because, in the end, if you don’t get elected, you’ll be relegated to sitting behind Facebook, bitching all day, typing out angry messages.”

Observation from an onlooker: That last bit sure sounds like the Trump platform to me.