The former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney “hopes to be able to rebuild” the Republican party after Donald Trump leaves the political stage. Mitt Romney, the retiring Utah senator and former presidential nominee, reportedly hopes so too.
Among other prominent Republicans who refuse to bow the knee, the former Maryland governor Larry Hogan is running for a US Senate seat in a party led by Trump but insists he can be part of a post-Trump GOP.
Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chair turned MSNBC host, advocated more dramatic action: “We have to blow this crazy-ass party up and have it regain its senses, or something else will be born out of it. There are only two options here. Hogan will be a key player in whatever happens. Liz Cheney, [former congressmen] Adam Kinzinger and Joe Walsh – all of us who have been pushed aside and fortunately were not infected with Maga, we will have something to say about what happens on 6 November.”
Trump is happening because far right republicans realized after Watergate that if they wanted to get away with crimes in the future, that they needed to have news that presents “alternate” facts that are favorable to their narrative or that would at the least muddy the waters. Roger Ailes his plan worked basically.
Without censoring his appearances, Trump comes across as petulant/weak/selfish/stupid/hateful/… Without censoring his history, republican voters would have known that he was a serial scam artist, serial adulterer, … Basically without that alternate fact media supporting rightwing skullduggery, there would never have been a president Trump.
Imo it’s nonsense to claim that Trump getting elected, is happening because voters are angry because of mysterious reasons that no one can figure out, when those voters are so misinformed that they consistently vote against their own interests and believe stupid conspiracy theories that are being pushed to rile them up against the “other”. As long as that many people live in an alternate reality based on lies and hate, there is no helping them. So the challenge becomes: how do you bring them out of it and how do you prevent it from happening again in the future.