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‘Absolute bloodbath’ at RNC as new leadership loyal to Trump purges staff (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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Chair Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump move to reorganize the party, with an expected cull of 60 members

Donald Trump’s new leadership team at the Republican National Committee started the process of ousting scores of staffers on Monday night, clearing out its ranks as they prepare to bring the committee under the wing of the Trump 2024 presidential campaign, sources familiar with the matter said.

The RNC is expected to cull about 60 people across the political, data and communications departments. At least five members of the senior staff will be let go and some third-party contracts may also be cancelled. One source familiar with the situation described it as an “absolute bloodbath”.

In ousting large swathes of the RNC, the new chair Michael Whatley and the new co-chair Lara Trump – the former president’s daughter-in-law – moved to reorganize the Republican party’s central committee to fall squarely behind the Trump campaign just days after they were formally elected.

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[–] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Yeah, I mostly agree... but at the same time, part of the issue is that in Trump's situation it's maybe not necessary to have a political machine in the first place.

The Republican establishment already tried to kill him politically in the beginning, but in the end if people vote for him, it doesn't really matter what any DC organization says. No one needs to see a TV commercial to know who he is. No one needs to have a debate organized in order to hear from him. He's immune to a lot of the survival requirements that would usually take money and organization in order for someone to meet. It's still useful to have an organization and get stuff done, but not having it doesn't make it impossible for everyone to vote for him.

(And, of course, it works the other way too -- progressive candidates with a sizable enough how-many-votes advantage can still win elections, even if the media / DNC / all usual advantages are stacked against them, because in the end the votes are what actually matter) (Nevada ratfuckery notwithstanding)

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago*

    Name recognition gets him about 20% of the vote. He gets another 20% or so from people who don't like him, but hate Democrats more.

    Getting that last 10% is the trick, and it's where all the money goes. In 2016, Hillary's campaign spent $564M and Trump $333M. This doesn't include outside PACs and such, but note that Trump only won on a technicality that year. In 2020, Biden spent $1,000M and Trump $774M, and Trump lost.

    The GOP does need to collect donations. The 2016 Republican Convention cost $67M. They have $8M in the bank, which isn't even enough to cover the inflation on the 2016 number. State level Republican parties are outright broke. Oh, and some successful legal challenges to gerrymandering mean they'll have to back more candidates in races that are actually competitive.

    There's danger here that Trump will win and be able to establish his dictatorship, but there's also a possibility of Republicans having complete electoral collapse outside of deep red states and districts.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The thing is... What about all the other political positions? Senate, House, state level, etc. need funds and ads and all that to win. I guess if he wins and declares himself "Supreme Dictator For Life," maybe it doesn't matter. Otherwise, state representation has a lot of power. I guess the chuds will vote red down ballot but if RNC becomes as dysfunctional as donnie dumbass, they're going to lose a lot more elections.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago*

    Yeah. Who gets to be a political party isn't written into the constitution; we've had big parties come and go before. It's been stable for so long that it's started to seem like part of the fabric, but it's not.

    If the RNC becomes unable to fund or organize any downballot races at all, so that at the end of it all Trump brings about the collapse of the GOP, then I'd be okay with that.

    Of course, there's also an option that his seizure and mismanagement of the whole Republican machinery means that they suffer a bloodbath in congress, but he wins the presidency, and then like so many dictators before him he simply declares that congress doesn't count anymore and he's not bound by them, with the supreme court majority behind him and his violent supporters ready to kill to back it up. That's a possibility.

    There could be a nice synergy that we could use the collapse of the GOP to enact something like proportional representation in congress, which would be kind of an easy sell at that point if the left wing is okay with it, because it's a way for conservatives to hold on to some level of power instead of none.

    But the first possibility is much, much more plausible to me unfortunately

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