Remember Representative Martha Roby (R-AL2), who barely made it into Congress in 2016 when she dared to withdraw her support from then-candidate Trump, and then proceeded to vote 100% with his agenda – and still drew criticism and threats of another primary challenge? Well, I fear her allegiance to the extremist conservative cause isn’t as strong as it was, as FiveThirtyEight demonstrates:
Yes, she’s dropped a full 2.5 percentages points from perfection with the extremists, and that’s just not good enough – she’s being assailed by primary opponents. WaPo explains:
“I know that I back up the president, I support the president, and I will continue to do that,” [candidate Rich Hobson said].
As if she hasn’t?
A former Democrat is actually the most serious primary challenger to Roby. Former congressman Bobby Bright is running for the seat that Roby took from him in 2010, this time as a Republican. He’s also cozying up to conservatives to draw a contrast with Roby.
“I am a Republican, my philosophy is Republican, and I want to run this race as a Republican,” Bright told local TV station WTVY.
Alabama candidates who don’t get a majority of the vote must go to a runoff in July with the second-highest vote-getter. Republicans watching the race expect Roby to go to a runoff with Bright. …
Roby may well go on to win a fifth term in Congress despite her very public reprimand of the president back in 2016. But her struggles to clear Tuesday’s primary present two important lessons for Republicans in Congress right now: (1) This is Trump’s party, and (2) Beware of questioning him out loud.
Boy, say one bad thing and the Trump faithful will try to trample you underfoot. This is really an indictment of the GOP base, which has slid rightward as moderate members are ejected through the RINO mechanism or leave in sheer disgust at the membership’s behavior. The requirement and expectation of a personal loyalty, so visibly demonstrated in the Comey firing scandal in which Trump requested a pledge of loyalty from then-FBI Director Comey, is a symptom of a fundamental illness afflicting the GOP, a political immaturity in which one’s views on the challenges facing the nation, which are addressed through the formulation and application of policy views, is less important than the loyalty to the Party Leader.
That loyalty culture will, I think, make for a very brittle Party, and if Trump is ever caught committing an unforgivable act, the GOP will shatter because it’s no longer built around policy or moral positions, but rather a person. If he disappears, the consequent power struggle combined with that loyalty structure will result in a GOP in which various factions will fight for control over the base, and the base will try to pick who to be loyal to, rather than asking who has the best policies. It may shatter the GOP, or make it less effective as loyalty bonds become indestructible by anything less than death.
And I gotta say, that fellow Bright who is considered Roby’s biggest challenger sounds like a real third-rater. Shifting from Democrat to Trump-lover, for that’s what it means to be in the GOP these days, is a long ways to go, even for a conservative Democrat. If I met him, the first thing going through my mind would be “power-addict, watch out!”
