NY Mag: The MAGA House Will Make The Tea Party Look Tame

Donald Trump won the 2016 election.

Unfortunately, Trump was a solo act and his victory came as a shock to Washington. He began his presidency as an isolated figure inside his own administration and with little support for his agenda in the Republican Congress. He squandered his political capital trying to work with Paul Ryan and the True Cons who still controlled Congress by delivering big wins on repealing Obamacare and tax cuts.

The 2018 midterms added a sprinkle of Trumpists in Congress like Josh Hawley in the Senate. The 2020 election added more MAGA types like Marjorie Taylor Greene. It won’t be until after the 2022 midterms that Trump’s powerful enemies in the party like Liz Cheney are removed from power and a MAGA Congress will be well on its way to emerging in the House and gaining a foothold in the Senate.

New York Magazine:

“For Democrats desperate to safeguard their majorities, there is plenty of optimism and a healthy amount of fear heading into November. Parties in power traditionally suffer in the midterms and even the bounce Democrats are enjoying over the issue of abortion rights may not be enough to save them. Much of the focus, for the left-leaning political class, has been on the high-profile contests for the Senate. Can John Fetterman hold on in Pennsylvania? Can Mandela Barnes drive out Ron Johnson in Wisconsin? Is Tim Ryan for real in Ohio?

Down ballot, however, is where the real danger lies for the Democratic Party. Republicans are still the favorite to retake the House and could wreak havoc even if Democrats hold the Senate. Joe Biden’s legislative agenda would be dead in a GOP-controlled House, much as it was for Barack Obama when tea-party Republicans stormed into the majority in 2011. …

Next year, if Republicans have the majority again, they will enter office with far more fury and star power than whatever the tea party brought to bear. The new class of Republicans will be overwhelmingly loyal to Donald Trump, with many of them elected in primaries that have become, more than anything else, tests of how slavishly devoted a politician can be to the MAGA brand. It’s Trump’s party in every way, even if he’s indicted, even if Ron DeSantis runs for president. Many of these House Republicans tout all of his conspiracies and fever dreams. They are devoted to the Big Lie of 2020, that Trump somehow didn’t lose an election to Biden. Unlike the Senate Republican contenders, who have been forced to moderate themselves to appeal to statewide electorates, House Republicans face almost no such pressure, especially in gerrymandered districts. They can be as unhinged as they want to be.

A House Republican majority will inevitably impeach Biden — Trump was impeached twice and many of these Republicans will be out for revenge. Hunter Biden is scandal-scarred enough that they can hunt up a pretext, or just invent one. Impeachment is not a legal process. It’s political, and if Republicans have the numbers, they will force frivolous investigations and subpoena any Democratic official that fits the warped corruption narrative they’ve concocted for the moment. In Washington, it’s going to be a very long 2023 and 2024 for Democrats. Two-thirds of the Senate is still needed for a conviction and that threshold won’t be reached, just as it wasn’t in either of Trump’s impeachments. Perhaps Biden will get the privilege of proclaiming he was exonerated from something. …”

We will see.

I’m honestly curious to see what happens.

The True Cons controlled the House under Paul Ryan in 2017 and 2018. They had even more power to block the more populist elements of Trump’s agenda in the Senate. This is going to change though after the 2022 midterms due to the collapse of that faction through retirements and primary defeats. It is no longer possible to imagine that Trumpism is going to vanish after Trump himself leaves office.