The GOP is self-policing … further to the right

If Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) is successful in his mission, the sixth representative to be ousted from the Chamber will be Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene’s history as a conspiracy theorist was well-known before her election, with her explicit advocacy of the QAnon movement leading to unusual scrutiny of a freshman legislator. Since Greene was sworn in, a number of new revelations have emerged, including that she harassed a teenage survivor of the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., and that she expressed support for violence against Democratic legislators.

“Such advocacy for extremism and sedition not only demands her immediate expulsion from Congress,” a news release from Gomez read, “but it also merits strong and clear condemnation from all of her Republican colleagues, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.”

Gomez holds a safe Democratic seat, but California’s open primary system means that he’s vulnerable to a general election challenge from his own party. In November, he won by only six points over another Democrat. So raising his profile by taking on a nationally prominent Republican is not a bad way to make his mark.

Nonetheless, Gomez has a point: Greene’s past comments do seem to demand some consideration from her peers. It’s likely that won’t be robust. When CNN first reported them, a spokesperson for McCarthy told Axios that the minority leader would “have a conversation with the Congresswoman about them.”

McCarthy has other worries. During a call with his caucus, he demanded that they stop attacking one another, reportedly telling House Republicans to “cut that crap out.”

He almost certainly wasn’t talking about Republicans piling on Greene. He was, instead, talking about another Republican who has come under fire: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

Cheney, you may recall, was one of 10 Republicans in the House to vote to impeach President Donald Trump earlier this month. That impeachment, Trump’s second, followed his actions on Jan. 6 in which he told a rowdy crowd at a rally that the 2020 presidential contest had been stolen and urged them to march on the U.S. Capitol — shortly before a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building, leading to five deaths.

In a statement explaining her vote, Cheney blasted Trump.

“None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not,” the statement read. “There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

The response from other Republicans has not been encouragement or an agree-to-disagree acceptance. Instead, as with other heretics to the party in the era of Trump, the response has been an attempt to sideline Cheney and undercut her power.

McCarthy’s “……cut it out” was likely primarily focused on Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), as loyal a Trumpist as exists in the House. Gaetz — himself no stranger to getting media attention — has led the charge to strip Cheney of her leadership post within the Republican caucus. On Thursday, he’s heading to Wyoming to hold a rally targeting Cheney for having the temerity to vote with her conscience.

Others who joined her in that vote have reported similar political backlash. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), for example, also voted to impeach Trump and now fully expects to have to fight to keep his seat. Another Republican has already filed to run against him in the party primary, which is more than a year away.

“I think we’re going to have an epic battle in the next six months for the definition of this party,” Kinzinger told The Washington Post.

Notice, though, where the pressure is being applied. It is safe to say that Kinzinger and Cheney are feeling more heat from their party for deciding to hold Trump to account than Greene is facing for her comments and conspiracy theories. McCarthy didn’t need to tell his caucus to lay off Greene; he had to tell them to lay off Cheney.

McCarthy himself gives some indication of how the “epic battle” predicted by Kinzinger is likely to resolve. Shortly after the Jan. 6 violence, he blamed Trump for inciting the violence. Last weekend, he declared that a slightly wider universe was responsible for what happened: “everybody across this country.” What seemed in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6 to be a move from Republicans to distance the party from the then-president has collapsed — as it has so many times before — into a desire to simply change the conversation to something else.

At some point this week, McCarthy is reportedly going to meet with Trump in Florida. It’s an almost literal demonstration of the gravity Trump still commands in the party, drawing GOP leaders to him even as his political power has waned. Even in political exile, Trump holds sway directly and indirectly over the party and its representatives. Even with Trump in exile, the party is tugged in his direction.

It is safe to assume, for example, that Trump will have more to say to McCarthy about Cheney than about Greene.