Extremists Are At It Again

The GOP radicals can’t seem to help themselves, and they are pulling down their party with them.

Photos and Images courtesy of NY Post

The GOP doesn’t want a repeat of 2022, where extremism led to electoral defeat instead of the vaunted “red wave” in several critical swing states. But the Republican Party is often its own worst enemy, and it just can’t help itself with the radicals in its midst wielding outsized power and influence.

Take the chaos in the GOP House leadership. Just as in 2023, extremists within the House GOP are now in open revolt over the budget deal negotiated and agreed to by their own party’s leadership. They are now behaving, threatening and strategizing in a way that is eerily similar to last year, which as we know culminated in a motion to vacate the chair and the removal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The new Speaker Johnson is maneuvering frantically to avoid a similar outcome, but at what cost?

Take also the question of the incarcerated January 6 defendants, whom Donald Trump insists on calling “hostages.” This alarming recasting of violent criminal defendants as somehow the victims of that day and of our criminal justice system got a boost recently. The No. four ranking House Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), deliberately repeated Trump’s “hostages” rhetoric on Meet the Press this past weekend. This is a gift to Democrats; reporters are now asking Republican officials if they agree with the use of “hostages” to describe the imprisoned January 6 defendants, forcing them to choose between loyalty to Trump and blowback from their own more moderate constituents.

Let’s take a closer look at how extremism within the GOP is threatening its electoral chances, with a specific focus on the chaos around the budget and the shameful, revisionist efforts to create martyrs and heroes out of violent January 6 criminals. I’ll discuss why the stance of the Freedom Caucus and the language of Trump and Stefanik may play well to the MAGA base but are plain losers when it comes to the broader electorate.

Is Mike Johnson’s Speakership at risk?

You’d think after all the GOP went through in 2023 with their own House leadership, they would at least agree not to repeat the debacle. 

A quick recap:

Basic math forced former Speaker McCarthy to strike a budget deal with the Democrats. This sent the House Freedom Caucus into open revolt. They began to block procedural “rules” votes, preventing McCarthy from controlling the House floor. When McCarthy had to postpone a deal on the budget by enlisting the help of Democrats, rather than shut down the government, they ultimately removed him from office. 

After an embarrassing few weeks without a leader, the GOP finally elevated an extremist, Mike Johnson, to the role. But Speaker Johnson now faces the same budget math as McCarthy, and the Freedom Caucus is again nearing a mutiny. A group of extremists have taken down the GOP’s own rules bills in protest, the same behavior that presaged McCarthy’s removal. 

Should Johnson be worried? He is certainly expressing outward confidence. “I don't think I’m in any jeopardy of being vacated. It’s not something I walk around and think about,” Johnson said during an appearance on Fox on Wednesday.

Still, there is more than strong grumbling among the far-right.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA) told reporters on Thursday that removing Johnson as Speaker was “absolutely on the table.” She also said on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast that she had “had it” with Johnson’s dealmaking with Senate Democrats.

Others echoed this sentiment. “He should have never been hired,” said Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH).

“If they totally botch [the appropriations bills] ... I don’t know why we would keep him as speaker,” warned Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), one of the more extreme members on the budget.

Johnson emerged from a meeting on Thursday with the far-right members expressing the need to listen to their concerns but remaining noncommittal about what he would actually do. His choices are quite limited: Stick with the budget that he spent weeks hammering out with Senate leaders, or renege on it to appease the extremists who want across-the-board discretionary spending cuts that will go exactly nowhere with the Senate.

If he picks the latter route, the government will shut down partially, and the House GOP very likely will be blamed for it. After all, there was a deal, and Republican extremists forced Johnson to walk away from it.

If he picks the former route, those same extremists could remove him as Speaker, just as they did McCarthy. That would lead, most likely, to weeks of chaos and uncertainty, rendering further work on the budget impossible. And there’s another harder deadline coming up in February for the House to complete its work.

There are 18 GOP members considered highly vulnerable because they represent districts that were won by Joe Biden in 2020. The do-nothing Congress, led by their party, is a tough label to run away from. If a protracted shutdown gets added to this, voter outrage will only intensify and could easily tip the majority back over to the Democrats.

It’s already hanging by a thread.

“Hostages” … really?

It was bad enough when Trump began using the term “hostages” to refer to the incarcerated January 6 defendants. The GOP no doubt was hoping that was just a one-off, but Trump repeated it again, this time before crowds in Iowa on the third year anniversary of the attack on the Capitol.

“They ought to release the J6 hostages. They’ve suffered,” Trump said, using a common abbreviation for January 6. “I call them hostages. Some people call them prisoners. I call them hostages. Release the J6 hostages Joe. Release them Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe.”

Condemnation was swift from Trump’s critics. Remarked former Rep. Liz Cheney while on Face the Nation this past weekend, “It's disgraceful for Donald Trump to be saying what he’s saying.” She added, “You can't say that you’re pro-law enforcement if you then go out and you say these people are hostages.” 

Trump’s view of the defendants as “hostages” stood in marked contrast to President Biden’s. At a speech in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the day before the January 6 anniversary, Biden labeled the rioters “Trump’s mob”—which we are likely to hear repeated as a theme throughout the campaign.

“Trump’s mob wasn’t a peaceful protest; it was a violent assault,” President Biden said. “They were insurrectionists, not patriots. They weren’t there to uphold the Constitution; they were there to destroy the Constitution.”

Those within the GOP seeking to curry favor with Trump saw an opportunity to demonstrate their fealty following his remarks. The worst example, to no one’s surprise, came from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who went on national television to repeat the lie that the defendants are somehow “hostages.”

Stefanik had appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, where host Kristen Welker asked if Stefanik thought those “who stormed the Capitol should be held responsible” for those crimes.

“I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages. I have concerns,” Stefanik responded. (To the disgust of many, Welker did not challenge or even explore Stefanik’s use of the term. “Why do you call them ‘hostages’ and not convicted criminals?” would have been a good start.)

But Stefanik’s comments has created problems for GOP members seeking to distance themselves from the insurrectionists and their apologists. As the Washington Post reported,

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), whose district favored Biden by 6 points in 2020, finds such statements an abomination. He has learned to carve out his own identity in winning four terms all during the Trump era.

“They’re criminal defendants, not hostages,” Fitzpatrick said Wednesday, declining to directly criticize Stefanik, Trump or others who embrace those claims.

Stefanik doesn’t seem to care what chaos her statements, coming from one of the party’s leaders, created in their wake. That’s because her shift toward MAGA extremism has made her highly successful at small donor fundraising. Because such statements win her the approval of both Trump and his base, she has little incentive to stop.

Within this dynamic is a deep dysfunction that already led to electoral consequences in 2022. Extremists like Greene and Stefanik have grasped ahold of the GOP and will be its face come 2024, especially with Trump as the nominee. The worst rhetoric from MAGA radicals garners the highest engagement on social media, more bookings on Fox and Newsmax, and small dollar donations that add up to millions. The extremists have every incentive to continue creating and fomenting chaos, even as it sinks the prospects of their own party.

I believe it was Napoleon who once advised to never interrupt your opponents while they are making a mistake. And what extremists are doing—by calling for their own Speaker’s head (again!) and dredging up January 6 conspiracies and grievances—certainly qualifies as bad political mistakes.