The GOP war on Republicans
Alert to the fact that Donald Trump loves to riff, some party operatives are bracing for off-the-cuff zingers directed at Republican Party Trump dissidents, when the former president speaks this weekend in North Carolina.
“He’s going to spray friendly fire on other Republicans and settle scores under the auspices of endorsing people in Republican primaries in 2022,” GOP donor and former Trump supporter Dan Eberhart told the Washington Post.
“This back-to-the-future style is putting the Republican Party in a straitjacket, preventing it from learning from our 2020 losses and adapting to the most recent voter concerns.”
Trump is reported to be fixated on the recount currently underway in Maricopa County, Arizona, of 2020 presidential election votes; the recount was ordered by the Arizona state Senate, a body dominated by Republicans.
Now, there are Republicans in Arizona who think the recount is a dangerous, disingenuous sham, in view of the fact that Joe Biden carried the state by 10,457 votes, all highly legitimate.
Clint Hickman is the president of the Maricopa County board of supervisors. He’s a Republican. Hickman recently said, of the 2020 election and the recount taking place on the floor of Veterans Coliseum in Phoenix:
“In a free democracy, elections result in some people’s candidates losing. I’m not going to violate the law or deviate from my moral compass, as some people have pushed me to do” by endorsing the recount.
Bill Gates, one of four Republicans on the Maricopa County board of supervisors (a lone Democrat serves on the five-member board), said, “It’s time to push back on the ‘big lie'” that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
“…. Otherwise, we’re not going to be able to move forward and have an election in 2022 (in which) we believe the results, whatever they may be.”
Then there is Republican Stephen Richer, who defeated the Democratic incumbent in November 2020 to become Maricopa County recorder. Speaking of the recount, he has said, “We can’t indulge these insane lie (about the presidential election being stolen) any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country.”
On May 17, the board of supervisors of Maricopa County sent a letter to state Senate President Republican Karen Fann calling on her to end the election audit.
In short, in Arizona the 2020 election outcome has been weaponized by Trump Republicans to falsely batter not just Joe Biden, Democrats, and democracy in general, but their fellow Republicans.
The Republican war on Republicans isn’t confined to Arizona, however.
It’s showing signs of life in Pennsylvania. Primary election misfires in Fayette, Luzerne, Lancaster and Delaware counties have some GOPers up in arms.
The Republican Party chief in Delaware County, Tom McGarrigle, accused election officials of using “voter suppression techniques” against Republican voters.
“This county … can’t run an election, McGarrigle said. “This was a complete failure of leadership and accountability. “
The problem is three of the four cited counties are Republican-controlled. Lancaster has a long history of GOP dominance. Luzerne slipped from Democratic hands in 2019. The same for Fayette County, where the absence of bar codes on ballots affected both sides in the May primary.
Visiting Arizona this past week for an approving look-see at the recount were Pennsylvania state senators Doug Mastriano and Cris Dush and state Rep. Rob Kauffman, all Republicans.
Afterward, Mastriano, who was present for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington and is mulling over a possible run for governor in 2022, said, “I’d like to see an audit” of the Pennsylvania presidential vote.
Standing in the way is Rep. Seth Grove, the York County Republican who chairs the committee that handles election issues. He’s placed a kibosh on “further audits of any previous election.”
Case closed? Don’t bet on it. The Associated Press reported on Friday that Grove’s state Senate counterpart, Republican David Argall, has indicated an audit remains a possibility.
Republicans critical of the 25 Pennsylvania counties that turned to private donations to help cover the extraordinary cost of the 2020 elections have opened another front of the Trump wars.
Despite being condemned by Trump-fraud advocate Rep. Eric Nelson of Westmoreland County, none of the counties have said they were sorry for taking the money. It turns out that 13 of the 25 were in Republican hands in 2020.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.