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Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theorists Are Taking Over State Republican Parties
This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).
Source: Vice News
The Republican Party chairs of Texas and Wyoming have flirted with secession from the United States. Oklahoma’s Republican chair has called Islam a “cancer.” The Oregon GOP called the Capitol insurrection a “false flag” operation. And at least 19 Republican state chairs—including most of the ones in key swing states—publicly pushed former President Trump’s big lie about the election.
A VICE News review of public positions of all 50 GOP state chairs shows a significant number are openly pushing conspiracy theories, spouting unhinged rhetoric, and actively undermining voters’ trust in democracy. That includes the chairs of nearly every swing state in the U.S. And the trend is accelerating: Many of the most extreme chairs just won their chairmanships or have been reelected since Trump left office four months ago, a number of them with his explicit endorsement.
Liz Cheney’s ouster from GOP party leadership showed how much Trump retains his stranglehold on the GOP on the national stage. But the overwhelming wins by Trump loyalists in the first widespread internal Republican elections since Trump left office, albeit in small contests chosen by a hardcore, activist subset of the GOP base, show that his conspiratorial claims about the election run even deeper in the states than in Washington—and will guide the grassroots for years to come.
“I don’t know why people are sitting around expecting that somehow this is going to fix itself,” said Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee’s national chairman from 2009-2011 and a fierce Trump critic. “It won’t fix itself because Donald Trump won’t allow it to be fixed. And people who back Donald Trump and all the stuff that comes with it, they think they're right, they think this is working, they think this is what a party should be like.”
A VICE News review of public positions of all 50 GOP state chairs shows a significant number are openly pushing conspiracy theories, spouting unhinged rhetoric, and actively undermining voters’ trust in democracy. That includes the chairs of nearly every swing state in the U.S. And the trend is accelerating: Many of the most extreme chairs just won their chairmanships or have been reelected since Trump left office four months ago, a number of them with his explicit endorsement.
Liz Cheney’s ouster from GOP party leadership showed how much Trump retains his stranglehold on the GOP on the national stage. But the overwhelming wins by Trump loyalists in the first widespread internal Republican elections since Trump left office, albeit in small contests chosen by a hardcore, activist subset of the GOP base, show that his conspiratorial claims about the election run even deeper in the states than in Washington—and will guide the grassroots for years to come.
“I don’t know why people are sitting around expecting that somehow this is going to fix itself,” said Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee’s national chairman from 2009-2011 and a fierce Trump critic. “It won’t fix itself because Donald Trump won’t allow it to be fixed. And people who back Donald Trump and all the stuff that comes with it, they think they're right, they think this is working, they think this is what a party should be like.”
Read more: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7ed9y/trump-election-conspiracy-theories-taking-over-republican-party
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