The wave of party-sponsored censures greeting Republicans who cross former President Donald Trump reveals a GOP interested in pushing out heretics whose lone political sin is disloyalty to the vanquished party leader.
More than a dozen prominent Republicans have been slapped with censure resolutions by state or county parties this year. Most were rebuked for voting to impeach Trump or to convict the former president at trial in the Senate because they hold him responsible for the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol by his grassroots supporters. Some Republicans were censured because party activists decided they ignored Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
In most instances, reprimanded Republicans have pristine conservative records. Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are the latest Republicans to be censured, having voted Saturday to convict Trump on the single article of impeachment approved by the House on Jan. 13. Before Trump exited the White House, they supported his legislative agenda nearly 90% of the time. No matter, this is about fealty to a man.
“In terms of this particular vote, it hit a raw nerve with people,” said Michael Whatley, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party. “Folks from one end of the state to the other were disappointed.”
Burr is retiring in 2022 after 18 years in the Senate and nearly 30 years in Congress, rendering the censure resolution approved by the North Carolina GOP an exercise in pro-Trump virtue signaling. But Whatley said he held hundreds of calls with irate GOP officials and grassroots activists after Burr delivered his “guilty” verdict. The overwhelming consensus was that censure was “appropriate” — to express support for the 45th president and reject the impeachment trial as unconstitutional.
Trump left office last month after a single term, having lost to President Biden and watched the Democrats recapture control of the House and Senate on his watch. But Trump’s favorable ratings with Republican voters are as strong as ever. Neither his refusal to accept the results of the November election, nor the insurrection of the Capitol, and his subsequent impeachment for the second time, have wilted his political standing inside the GOP.
Friction between congressional Republicans and party activists at the state and local level is nothing new, although it usually revolves around ideological differences and tends not to result in formal denunciations. Republican rebellions against Trump seem to inspire an uncommonly severe backlash from grassroots conservatives. John Couvillon, a Republican pollster in Louisiana, where the state GOP just finished censuring Cassidy, explained their fidelity to the former president this way:
“Remember the old Twisted Sister song, ‘We’re Not Gonna Take it?’” he said. “Republican activists now see Trump as the visualization of: ‘You’re either with me or you’re against me.’”
In addition to Burr, Cassidy, and Toomey, the GOP censure caucus includes: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 ranking House Republican; Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey; former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona; Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; Cindy McCain, widow of Arizona Sen. John McCain; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky; Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington state; Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina; Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska; Mike Shirkey, majority leader of the Michigan Senate; and Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan.
Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer escaped censure when a county party deadlocked on the vote. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington state, threatened with censure by one of the county parties that overlap her district, appears in the clear for now, as do other House Republicans who voted for impeachment and have heard an earful back home. Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, has opposed censures handed down by the party’s state and county affiliates.
Unlike most former presidents in the modern era, Trump plans to remain politically active and is telling confidants he plans to seek the White House a third time in 2024. (Recent polling suggests he would dominate the primary.) That could create tension inside the party that leads to more censures as some Republicans in Washington take positions on legislation, or back candidates in GOP primaries, that are at odds with those backed by Trump.
Dave Ball, chairman of Pennsylvania’s Washington County Republican Party, said Toomey was not elected “to vote his conscience” or “do the right thing … We sent him there to represent us.” At the moment, that means, most of all, not turning on Trump. “To some of these people, Donald J. Trump is sacrosanct,” a Republican strategist in the Keystone State said. “You can’t be neutral. No nuance, no middle ground; you’re all in or you’re dogs—.”
