Republicans are pushing for the removal of Kristina Karamo, an election-denying activist who rose to lead the state party this year, amid mounting financial problems and persistent infighting.
The mutiny took hold on Mackinac Island.
The Michigan Republican Party’s revered two-day policy and politics gathering, the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, was an utter mess.
Attendance had plummeted. Top-tier presidential candidates skipped the September event, and some speakers didn’t show. Guests were baffled by a scoring system that rated their ideology on a scale, from a true conservative to a so-called RINO, or Republican in name only.
And the state party, already deeply in debt, had taken out a $110,000 loan to pay the keynote speaker, Jim Caviezel, an actor who has built an ardent following among the far right after starring in a hit movie this summer about child sex trafficking. The loan came from a trust tied to the wife of the party’s executive director, according to party records.
For some Michigan Republicans, it was the final straw for a chaotic state party leadership that has been plagued by mounting financial problems, lackluster fund-raising, secretive meetings and persistent infighting. Blame has centered on the fiery chairwoman, Kristina Karamo, who skyrocketed to the top of the state party through a combative brand of election denialism but has failed to make good on her promises for new fund-raising sources and armies of activists.
The GOP is in civil war. A lot of it gets missed because much of it is at the local level. Fights between “constitutional” Republican (the crazies) and the regular Republicans (the less crazy) have been breaking out in places like the Sumner County, TN commission, and at state levels in places like AZ and MI. We are even seeing it in the House of Representatives to some degree.
As I like to say, "In some of these places they ran out of democrats "
You have the establishment Republicans realizing they lost big because of Trump, but the Trump Republicans are oblivious.
“Establishment” Republicans are still fascists if they’re still around.
My dad was a life long republican, but he jumped ship in 2016 and hasn’t looked back. Votes D across the board even though he hates it. That’s what any real “fiscal conservative” should have done. The writing was on the wall, plain as day, and anyone still around has chosen to look past all the blatant corruption and fascism.
Anyone who claims to be a fiscal conservative, should have left after Bush Jr fucked up the economy and deficit so royally we’re still dealing with it.
Cheney gave the game away when he said deficits didn’t matter and they they found out that it didn’t matter if you gave the game away because their people only listen to Fox News and right-wing talk rado.
The hardcore Republicans I knew after W’s disastrous presidency became temporary embarrassed Republicans and claimed they were always just Libertarians. As soon as the Tea Party sprang up they were back to their old ways.
Most are never going to change and when faced with the consequences of their own actions they will simply change names rather than reflect on their mistakes.
I completely agree.
I, myself, am a lifelong Republican that left the party when Trump became the nominee. He was so clearly and obviously self-serving, stupid and disgusting that I could not, and still cannot, imagine why anyone would vote for him or want him as their leader. And yet I watched Fox News praise his bumbling, rambling debates with Hillary Clinton and stood dumbfounded as to how we could have seen the same performance.
When Trump got the nomination I was simply done. Something flipped in my mind; Joe Biden became the first Democrat that I’d ever voted for since having first voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984 at the age of 20.
However, I was and am socially liberal. I have always been pro-abortion, pro-legalization, pro self. Technically i was more of a small-L conservative libertarian, but my Voter ID card says Republican. I’ve read all of Ayn Rand’s books. I have a signed first edition hardback of Atlas Shrugged: a birthday gift from my mother.
I will vote for Biden again, although with reservations about voting for someone who will be 82 at the beginning of their term and with no desire to experience a President Harris. Although doing so here in Oklahoma is pointless other than to show other Oklahomans that it can be done. It’s a very red state that isn’t likely to flip anytime soon.
Well written! Thanks for sharing, and for keeping a level head and committing your vote to fight your former party’s switch to fascism the best way that you can, as unpleasant as it must be for you.
My disillusionment with the Republicans began in earnest when the GOP nominated McCain to go up against Obama in 2008. There was no way an old, white-haired man was going to win against the young and savy Obama. It was just McCain’s turn to give it a go.
Don’t get me wrong, in hindsight I’m glad that Obama won, the United States needed his Presidency and he did a good job after a bumpy two or three years.
But Mitt Romney was a better pick than McCain, and to this day I think he would have made a good President. His denouncing Trump on his way out bolsters that opinion.
Level-headed Republicans are dead now (many literally so).
I voted for Republicans because I was worried about our national debt. I will literally never make that mistake again. Holy shit the GOP is the worst when it comes to national debt. The Democrats are the only ones who can balance a budget. Republicans just run up the deficit and then blame the Dems for out of control government spending that they either voted for, or voted against and take credit for when it has positive impacts for their districts.
GOP knew taking the TEA party into their ranks 10 years ago and every other extremist group and ideology based on hate and fear mongering was going to burn them before their careers were done, they just didn’t have an escape plan on how to drop the losers when it was going to become obvious the moderates and independents stopped voting for their assinine causes.
They were warned loudly years ago this was going to happen but their can’t see past the next election so they didn’t care then and they still don’t care now of they come out of the next cycle of elections with any power in tact. Lucky for them GOP voters will vote anything with ® by its name, something the Democrats don’t have quite so many willfully ignorant morons around to fill out their strategy with.
This was all predictable, and they’re reaping the consequences now. While Republican voters will vote for any R, the candidates are starting to realize that isn’t enough. Suburban middle class swing voters are not the reliable Republican voters they thought they were.
The Tea Party was astroturfing. It was started within the GOP as a pretend grassroots effort to pretend they weren’t the one’s cheering Bush along for every mistake he made. It was all the same people, though. It wasn’t some weird outside thing that got absorbed into the GOP. This is always who they were, but this time with filters taken off.
The tax day protests of 2009 were more or less the official start of the Tea Party. Free Republic (a popular far-right web site at the time) was cheering them along. You can see there how the guest list is filled with right wing media personalities. Hannity, Beck, and Gingrich were all there. Insiders were all lined up from the start.
They have to back trump because if they don’t he’ll call them childish names on the internet. As alpha males do. So basically they’re pussys and cowards.
You know, I might not agree with constitutional Republicans, but I can at least respect the thought process. I hope to at least see one on TV some day, they must be drinking with bigfoot and nessy.
There are no “less crazy” republicans.
Sure there are. They merely believe that abortion should be outlawed. They don’t believe abortion should be punishable by death. See? Less crazy.
Reminds me of my favorite line from Big Bang Theory.
Of course there are, but their problem is that they’re too chickenshit to speak up.