«The Republican Party has lost its way.»<\/b>
\nCan we really call it a \u201ccivil war\u201d when there are like 12 people on one side and 74 million on the other? For some reason I can\u2019t find an embeddable version of the video Kinzinger posted yesterday to announce his new PAC, \u201cCountry First.\u201d (A McCain reference, just to sharpen the contrast with Trump.) You can watch it on their website. I find it less interesting for the content of Kinzinger\u2019s speech, which is verrrry heavy on bromides, than for the mere fact that it exists. There are only three Republicans left in Congress who are unafraid to speak their mind about Trump and Trumpism \u2014 Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, and Lisa Murkowski \u2014 and Romney and Murkowski have good reason to believe they can survive a primary because of their states\u2019 somewhat unique political cultures. Kinzinger has no such guarantee. Granted, he\u2019s won his House primaries easily in the past, but he knows he\u2019ll be a prime target for MAGAworld in 2022. Liz Cheney might have enough money and establishment connections by dint of her family pedigree that she can survive in Wyoming, but I\u2019m skeptical that Kinzinger can. And yet here he is in full DGAF mode, doing TV interviews regularly about Trump\u2019s pernicious influence on the party and further antagonizing the president\u2019s voters. Now he even has a PAC devoted to the effort. While most other pro-impeachment Republicans are keeping their heads down, he\u2019s waving the red cape in front of the bull. What\u2019s his deal? Is he that much of a boy scout that he feels called to challenge Trump knowing that the effort will almost certainly hurt him more than it hurts MAGA? Is there some \u201cangle\u201d here, in which Kinzinger thinks that the political courage he\u2019s displayed in taking on Trump might actually earn the respect of voters in his district even if they tend to support the president? I doubt there\u2019s any angle. What\u2019s happening lately, I think, is that anti-Trump and Trump-skeptic Republicans are watching the way that two prominent Republican women are being handled by the party and getting angrier by the moment. On the one hand, Liz Cheney has MAGA droogs like Matt Gaetz campaigning against her in her own home state for the sin of having found Trump\u2019s \u201cstop the steal\u201d incitement impeachable, which of course it was. On the other hand, hardly anyone in Congress has said an unkind word about Trump-backed Marjorie Taylor Greene despite the recent evidence that her crankery is even more ominous than everyone thought. It\u2019s possible that this week will end with Cheney sanctioned by her caucus for having done the right thing and Greene left unpunished for having done many wrong things. A pre-Trump Republican looks at that and reacts viscerally: Get me away from this den of sociopaths as quickly as possible. So that\u2019s what some are doing. They\u2019re going away. Dozens of Republicans in former President George W. Bush\u2019s administration are leaving the party, dismayed by a failure of many elected Republicans to disown Donald Trump after his false claims of election fraud sparked a deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol last month. \u201cThe Republican Party as I knew it no longer exists. I\u2019d call it the cult of Trump,\u201d said Jimmy Gurul\u00e9, who was Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the Bush administration. Kristopher Purcell, who worked in the Bush White House\u2019s communications office for six years, said roughly 60 to 70 former Bush officials have decided to leave the party or are cutting ties with it, from conversations he has been having. \u201cThe number is growing every day,\u201d Purcell said. It\u2019s not just about the disparate treatment of Cheney and Greene. Another thing driving people away is how completely Republicans in Congress have capitulated to Trump \u2014 again \u2014 after the Capitol riot. If ever there was a moment when the party establishment might have given him a kick in the ass, it was after his fans went on a rampage in the halls of Congress looking to hang his VP and stop a U.S. presidential election from being certified. Trump\u2019s job approval tanked afterwards; some of his own aides resigned; he ended up leaving the White House quietly, with hardly any deputies gathered on January 20 to see him off. Annnnnd fully 45 of 50 Senate Republicans are ready to acquit him anyway on the dubious constitutional theory that someone who was impeached while in office can\u2019t be convicted once they\u2019ve exited. If you\u2019re a Trump-skeptic Republican who hung on through four years of chaos, a half-assed attempt to overturn an election, a Trump-instigated attack on the legislature, watching Senate Republicans roll over after all that so that Trump can rub their bellies should be the last straw. If the party is now completely hopeless, as the impending acquittal in the Senate suggests it is, what\u2019s left to do except walk away or wage civil war? The Cheney conundrum encapsulates the dilemma facing these rebels. While they may want to go hard at Trump, if the Republican voters still demand the uncut orange crazy, their mission is a kamikaze one. On the other hand, if they do nothing, it\u2019s not hard to figure out who the crocodile is going to chomp next. Heads they risk getting eaten, tails they risk getting eaten\u2026 But as someone who was in their shoes not too long ago, to me the choice is simple: After all the pain that Trump has caused them with his lies, after the party has lost the White House and both branches of Congress, after a mob of his creating literally charged their workplace looking for blood and screaming for hangings, isn\u2019t the only answer to fight? That\u2019s where Kinzinger lands. \u201cThere\u2019s gonna be a real massive battle,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m not going to shut up no matter what happens.\u201d Look at it this way: At this point, what does Kinzinger gain by keeping his mouth shut? He\u2019ll get primaried anyway after voting to impeach. If he loses that primary, he\u2019s done. If he wins it by keeping a low profile, he\u2019s essentially acquiesced in the \u201cnew GOP\u201d where criticizing Trump is a firing offense. Might as well fight for the party you want. The worst that can happen is that you end up being cast out of a party you didn\u2019t want to be part of anyway. Not everyone agrees, though. Watch this clip of his appearance yesterday on \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d According to Chuck Todd, a few other Republicans who joined him in voting to impeach were supposed to appear with him and backed out. They\u2019re going to try to feed the crocodile until 2022, it seems.<\/p>\n