Is the GOP's extremist wing now too big to fail?

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/14/politics/republican-extremism-trump-impeachment/index.html

(CNN) — Congressional Republicans have crystallized an ominous question by rejecting consequences for Donald Trump over the January 6 riot in his impeachment trial and welcoming conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia into their conference: Has the extremist wing of the GOP coalition grown too big for the party to confront?

Sanctioning Trump or Greene offered the party an opportunity to draw a bright line against extremist groups and violence as a means of advancing political goals. But the vast majority of congressional Republicans conspicuously rejected the opportunity to construct such a barrier through their decisions to oppose impeachment or conviction for Trump over his role in the US Capitol attack and to support Greene during the recent Democratic effort to strip her of her committee assignments.

Those choices unfolded against a backdrop of recent polls that found a stunningly high percentage of rank-and-file Republican voters endorsed anti- small-d democratic sentiments, including the belief that "the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it."

In a survey released last week by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, not only did a majority of GOP voters endorse that statement, but nearly one-third of them also embraced the convoluted QAnon conspiracy theory Greene has espoused alleging that Trump is defending the nation against a global ring of influential child sex traffickers.

*snip*

[leftieNanner]

1. There have been many reports of mainstream Republicans

Changing their party affiliation to Independent, which means that the ones left to vote in the Republican primaries are the lunatics. This means that there will be more MT Greenes running for Congress and (shudder) the Senate. The big question then is, will these former Republicans still pull the "R" lever in the voting booth, or will they wince and pull the "D"?

[Sneederbunk]

2. Ask those who are in custody pending trial.

[Hortensis]

3. No. Extremist wings always ultimately fail. The question is

do they crash alone (as is usually the case), leaving others to finally notice they're gone, or take others, even whole nations after a spectacularly disastrous run, down with them?

[empedocles]

5. That is my sense also. However, with the easy and cheapness of 'reply all' - they may persist

longer.

[Hortensis]

6. Well, so far we're winning. And most important, more people are

awakening to the very real danger to their safe, privileged lives in an advanced liberal democracy. Took too long but it is belatedly happening.

[empedocles]

4. My wife has this one circle of 11 Republican friends. 3 are thoroughly repulsed by trump.

1 is diplomatically bothered. 2 seem like they will always be republicon no matter what. Rest of them, not sure.

[The educational process has been slow. Slower than I would have thought, but some change].

[Thomas Hurt]

7. From my readings the RWNJs tend to segregate....if they meet with success,

they start using their radicalism to make money, then they steal and turn on each other. Schisms over ideological purity, paranoia, jealousy, etc.

These people are amoral to one degree or another, and entitled, sooner or later they try to screw each other.

They also grift, thieve and some hurt people. They need to be arrested, given their due process and imprisoned as necessary.

Most importantly, their organizations must be sued civilly and impoverished.

Trump needs to be sued and impoverished because I don't think he will every see a day in jail.

[newdayneeded]

8. Actually

Georgia, the extremist wing and it's thoughts gave it their all in those senate races, and lost. I think that's a huge deal. donny didn't help those races at all. you can bet other candidates are already having second thoughts of having him speak at campaign events.

[Merlot]

9. It's no longer a wing of the party, it is the party.