Voldemort

It’s as if Washington were at the center of a hurricane. The fallout from Jan. 6 has settled on the Republican Party, the wind whistles through the constitutional branches of government in Washington and the gusts seep into cracks in the Capitol, as if all the unrest has given way to silence. At the same time, the majority of Republicans in Congress have turned the other cheek, the majority of whom (at 211 to 139) are opposed to the impeachment proceedings in the House and the rest (with the exception of five Republicans) voting in the Senate against trying the former president.

This surreal silence finds its roots far from the capital. Many indicators suggest that, on the ground, the slide that has begun in the heart of the Republican Party is obvious, if not relentless. It’s as if “Death Eaters” were still working away in the shadows. The former president left a number of “horcruxes” behind (those objects in which a wizard can hide a piece of his soul to guarantee immortality in the event he is killed, referring to inventions from the books of J. K. Rowling).

Among the horcruxes, the specter of an unborn patriot party: the rioters of Jan. 6, more vocal than ever; Republican legislatures, where Trumpist populists would be more present and active than is apparent at the state level; and remainders within federal institutions as well, such as the unanimous reelection of loyal Trump supporter Ronna McDaniel as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, who announced that her committee would not stand in the way of the former president’s return in 2024. Or in the House, where a number of representatives stand as figureheads for unabashed Trumpism, who contribute to legitimizing discussions that would otherwise be considered marginal and violent, such as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who took office this year, has spread theories about satanic rituals involving Democrats and maintained that the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida, were staged. We are learning about representatives who are close to lesser right-wing extremist groups, like Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs and his ties to the Oath Keepers, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and connection to the Three Percenters, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and his ties to the Proud Boys and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar and his support for Cliven Bundy’s anti-government rebellion in Nevada.

But it goes even further to the heart of the states, and to the next election cycle, which officially begins in 11 months. In Michigan, where Rep. Peter Meijer, newly elected to the House of Representatives last November, faced off against calls that defied reason with his vote in favor of impeachment, an aggressive opponent has already begun the process to stand against him in the 2022 primaries. In Arizona, where the state’s Republican Party sent a clear signal to the establishment and to more moderate Republicans by sanctioning Gov. Doug Ducey (the Republican governor who certified the 2020 election results) and by reelecting an ultraloyal Trump supporter to the head of the state party. In Wyoming, where Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, who voted to impeach the former president, is already seeing the sword hanging over her head, as three candidates vie for her seat while her colleagues in the House attempt to remove her from her role as chairwoman of the Republican caucus.

The message is barely subliminal. Even if the former president is no longer in control of the country, he still seems to have one hand on the wheel when it comes to the party. On Jan. 6, before everything got out of hand, the president had effectively launched an appeal to his supporters, threatening “an inferno” if they did not hold primaries to challenge Republicans who had turned their backs on him. On top of this, the political committee, Trump Save America, armed with $200 million in funding, is already playing an active role in the 2022 midterm election and the campaign against Cheney. Many donors already have Republicans who “betrayed” the Trump cause in their sights, and have announced that they will be supporting their opponents in the primaries. In Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina, where outgoing Republican Sens. Pat Toomey, Rob Portman and Richard Burr have announced that they will not seek reelection, there is a pitched battle within the branches of the Republican Party. All the more so as the pandemic adds to the complexity of the political scene. Distancing within the party is contributing to reducing the hold that the classic partisan structure has on the course of the election cycle, in favor of more marginal candidates who are mobilizing social media networks.

The threat is so great that multiple surveys (including those conducted out by the Economist/YouGov, CNN) show that the majority of Republicans approve of the former president’s performance (at 80%), and that three-quarters of them believe that the election was fraudulent and oppose his impeachment. This, in other words, is the grassroots support of the former president. It is evident by the vigor with which a considerable range of conservative media supports the man from Mar-a-Lago and his followers. It will take much more than a magic wand for the GOP establishment to mend the fractures that could consecrate its loss.