Over the last few weeks, I have reported on how I believe there is a growing fracture in the Republican Party.
Donald Trump’s bullying and threats are no longer working, so much so that Republicans are now voting for legislation they know the president will veto.
The latest example came when more than 80 Republicans sided with Democrats to block a piece of legislation in the House that would have defunded an agency that Trump and most Republicans would love to see gone.
The problem is not just in the House, although the uprising is not nearly as large in the Senate.
The resistance in the upper chamber is only about five people deep, but those five are standing firm against Trump on just about every measure.
One recent example was the outcome of a proposal for Venezuela war powers legislation, with five Republicans voting with Democrats to block Trump from making any further military moves against Venezuela without congressional approval.
Another example came in the form of a DOJ probe of Fed chair Jerome Powell. The Federal Reserve chief has refused to lower interest rates at the speed Trump desires, and the consensus is that the recent investigation launched against him is an effort to coerce him into dropping the rates for the president.
Trump is also seeing resistance to his effort to make Greenland a U.S. territory.
Trump’s argument is legitimate in terms of Greenland being a key strategic location for the United States, but there are significant economic concerns, especially after the president floated the idea of a $100,000 payment to all residents to get them behind the plan.
The usual players, such as Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), are not behind the proposal, but this opposition also extends to some Trump allies.
For instance, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) stated, “[T]here’s certainly not an appetite here for some of the options that have been talked about or considered.”
An even bigger sign of trouble for Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is the breaking in the ranks of dozens of Republicans regarding a recent piece of legislation to defund the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which receives a portion of the $315 billion a year in taxpayer funds for these types of State Department programs.
The legislation was introduced by Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ), with leadership breaking the golden rule of only putting legislation on the floor that you know will pass. Clearly, that was not the case here, as 81 Republicans sided against the measure.
Crane was livid, posting, “Tonight, the Uniparty rejected my amendment to defund NED. [Eighty-one] ‘republicans’ voted with democrats to fund this rogue organization that fuels global censorship and domestic propaganda.”
What this tells me is that Republicans are starting to vote to keep their seats rather than to push Trump’s agenda. It’s self-preservation mode. In the game of politics, loyalty only goes so far, and with a tough midterm election cycle on the horizon, members are trying save that government paycheck rather than support Trump and his vision.
