In a little more than three years, a single man has altered the dynamics of Republican politics drastically enough to change the scale by which candidates and voters determine the viability of their potential GOP representatives.
Republicans’ fidelity to conservatism is no longer framed in terms of how conservatively they vote, but by how little they challenge, or have challenged, President Trump.
In March 2015:
– Two months into his role as Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell leads an unofficial but coordinated campaign against President Obama’s energy policies, encouraging states to take the Feds to court over coal-crushing regulations.
– Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signs into a law a bill that prevents government from “substantially burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion,” amid debates and lawsuits over same-sex wedding cakes.
– Republicans’ fidelity to conservatism is judged by how well they combat big government progressivism.
– The words “Donald Trump” and “president” are just starting to be used together with some measure of frequency, as Trump announces his presidential exploratory committee.
In June 2018:
– Republican candidates for office use their loyalty to President Trump as the buttress of their campaigns.
– Headlines following primary elections across the country read: “Proof that Republicans oppose Trump at their peril” and “Alabama congresswoman who disavowed Trump in 2016 forced into runoff.”
The headlines above are about eight-year incumbent Rep. Martha Roby (R-Montgomery), whose failure last week to win the Republican primary outright is attributable to her un-endorsing President Trump following the notorious “Access Hollywood” tape.
Roby wasn’t forced into a runoff because she isn’t conservative enough. Her voting record is as conservative as any member of Republican leadership.
She was forced into a runoff because she didn’t see it fit for the leader of America’s “family values” party to get away with talking about women that way.
Two of Roby’s Republican challengers openly admitted that her withdrawal of support for Trump led them to enter the race and made that a chief argument against Roby’s re-election.
“I think it showed where her mindset was and showed she did not support the Republican nominee,” Rich Hobson told Mike Cason of AL.com before the primary. “And that did open the door for folks to be able to run, and I know it opened the door for me.”
“I was the first in the nation to endorse Trump,” Barry Moore said in an interview on WOPP AM 1290 in Opp. “Our current congressman, she threw him under the bus, so the Trump guys called me that night and said would you at least consider.”
Neither Hobson nor Moore made the runoff, but together they got almost 27 percent of the vote by making few substantial arguments against Roby’s policymaking.
That one individual has been able to make himself the political measuring stick is one of the more lamentable realities in politics currently.
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