House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears to have found a strategy to manage the handful of Republican lawmakers who have caused scandals for their violent, racist and sometimes Islamophobic comments.
If you can’t, control them, promote them.
The path to power for Republican congressmen is now tied to their ability to generate outrage. The alarming rhetoric – and the increasing fundraising it provokes – is another example of how former President Donald Trump has made his mark on politics and changed the way Republicans gain influence and authority.
Success in Congress, previously measured by laws passed and voters reached, is now valued in many respects by the ability to attract attention, albeit negative, as the Republican Party tries to regain a majority in the lower house mobilizing the strongest defenders of Trump.
That has helped galvanize a group of far-right MPs like Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado; Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, whose provocative comments would have made them outcasts in another era.
Rather than being punished for personal attacks that break the traditional rules of Congress, they have been rewarded by the Conservatives, who have made great contributions to the Boebert and Greene campaigns.
“We are not the margin. We are the foundation of the party, ”Greene, who has supported calls to assassinate known Democrats in the past, said last week in a podcast hosted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
The Republican leadership’s low-intervention strategy allows them to spread hate speech, conspiracy theories and misinformation that can have real-world consequences, as well as test the resolve of the Democrats, who have already removed Gosar and Greene from their positions. committees.
It’s also a different tack than McCarthy took in 2019, when he stripped then-Rep. Steve King of Iowa of his committee positions for lamenting that white supremacy and white nationalism had become offensive terms.
Boebert has starred in the most recent example.
In two videos released recently, he compared Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who is one of three Muslims in Congress, to a terrorist hiding a bomb in a backpack. Boebert has also repeatedly referred to Omar as a member of a “jihad team,” describing her as “black-hearted” and “evil.”
His comments drew widespread condemnation and led to calls for Boebert to be the third Republican MP to be expelled from congressional committees this year. But instead of offering a public apology to Omar, Boebert defiantly insisted that it should be Omar who offered a public apology “to the American people” for his “anti-American” rhetoric, as well as past “anti-Semitic” comments, which were condemned by the Democrats at the time.
Amid the ensuing uproar, Omar received death threats, including a voicemail from a man who called her a “traitor” and said she would soon be “wiped off the face of the (expletive) Earth.”
“We cannot pretend this hate speech by prominent politicians has no real consequences,” Omar said on Tuesday, when he asked the Republican Party to “really do something to combat anti-Islamic hatred in its ranks.”
Boebert, for his part, reaffirmed himself with an appearance on Fox News in which he pointed out to the Democrats that they “want to cancel me” because of the controversy. She has raised $ 2.7 million so far this year, ranking her among the party’s fundraising leaders, according to published campaign finance documents.
McCarthy, poised to become Speaker of the House if Republicans regain a majority in the 2022 mid-term elections, played down the controversy on Friday. He gave Boebert credit for trying to apologize privately to Omar on a phone call and passed by for his refusal to do so in public.
“In the United States, it’s what we do,” he said. “And then we move on.”
But McCarthy has also indicated that there will be little consequence for personal attacks. Just last month, he said that those sanctioned by Democrats would be eligible for promotions if he takes over the presidency of the House, and raised the possibility that Gosar and Greene “may run better committee positions” than they previously held.
That also poses a difficult dilemma for Democrats. During an internal meeting on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned Boebert’s behavior but cautioned that restraint was needed.
“This is difficult because these people do it for publicity,” Pelosi said, according to a person in the room who insisted on anonymity to comment on private deliberations. “You have to consider how we contribute to their collection and their publicity about how offensive and disgusting they can be.”
In many cases, the incentives to provoke outrage may outweigh the consequences.
Greene came to Congress this year with a well-documented record of controversial remarks. As a former follower of QAnon’s conspiracy theories, she once argued that a wealthy Jewish family may have used space lasers to start fires in California.
He has also harassed survivors of school shootings, accused Pelosi of committing crimes punishable by capital punishment, and in 2019 appeared in a video on Capitol Hill claiming that Omar and other Muslim MPs were not “true official” members of Congress because they had not sworn their charge on the Bible.
Since being elected, she has used her constant attacks and moments of viral fame to raise $ 6.3 million – more than three times the cost of the average Congressional campaign – as well as becoming a popular speaker at fundraising events. party across the country.
“If you say something delusional, crazy, if you say something extreme, you are going to raise money,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina and one of the few Republicans who has openly criticized the rhetoric of her colleagues. Mace, who openly argued with Greene last week, called the Georgia lawmaker “a front-line con artist” who preys on “vulnerable conservatives.”
Gosar, criticized last month for sharing an animated video that showed him murdering Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, is not as prolific a fundraiser. But he has become a valued figure by white nationalists and attends far-right acts like an event in Florida last February hosted by Nick Fuentes, a web star who has championed white supremacist beliefs.
Still, some Republicans say that just because all three have achieved some fame, it doesn’t mean they have gained real influence or staying power.
“Some talented communicator always comes along,” said Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican with 10 legislatures of experience who set an example for congressmen elected in 1994, when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in decades. “We are very far from knowing how long they will stay. Many of the brightest stars of the course of 1994 had disappeared in eight years ”.
In addition, he pointed out, “The reality is that in the first six years, all you are going to do is what you are allowed.”
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