A handful of insurgent Republicans have unlocked the door to political autonomy, placing themselves beyond the controlling grasp of the party’s establishment leadership.
Congress has generally been understood to be leadership and seniority-driven. Most of the true power, particularly in the House, is concentrated in the hands of the party leaders (the speaker and minority leader) and their lieutenants, who dispense with committee assignments and campaign cash as they please.
But GOP lawmakers such as Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida are turning that dynamic on its head through a multifaceted approach that combines allegiance to Donald Trump, social-media savvy, and small-dollar donation fundraising. These popular firebrands have shown that it is possible to direct the national conversation and build a well-funded campaign machine outside the traditional power apparatus.
The Associated Press paints such outsiders as “hard-right provocateurs” who might “might hurt the GOP’s goal of capturing House control in next year’s elections.”
“Party leaders must decide what, if anything, to do about them, and what impact any action would have on their supporters, who come from the GOP’s staunchly conservative base,” AP writes.
But as the upset victory of Donald Trump and his enduring popularity among Republican voters demonstrates, the “hard-right” approach isn’t detrimental to the GOP’s chances at the ballot box; it’s key. Republicans lose the support of the base, and thus lose elections, when they’re perceived as betraying conservative principles by being too moderate.
AP specifically points to Greene and Gaetz as examples of Republicans who have successfully leveraged their pro-Trump credentials into strong personal brands that put them above the reproach of party leadership.
Greene’s case is particularly impressive considering that she’s a freshman representative who has been vehemently attacked by members of her own party and who was even stripped of her committee assignments due to comments she made on social media prior to running for office.
The Georgia Republican currently has 400,000 Twitter followers. While she hasn’t appeared on the three top cable networks, she has been given time on Trump-friendly outlets such as One America News Network and Newsmax TV.
It is precisely the ferocity with which the Left has attacked Greene that has endeared her to conservatives. Democrats and the mainstream media call her a “conspiracy theorist;” conservatives see her as someone willing to speak the truth about the Deep State. Liberals paint her as dangerous; conservatives see a fighter willing to take real action against the socialists, such as resolutions she introduced to impeach Joe Biden and to expel Maxine Waters from Congress.
The boldness and general lack of concern for political correctness has paid huge dividends for Greene. In the first three months of 2021, she reportedly raised $3.2 million. That’s more than double the $1.5 million the typical House GOP incumbent spent on the entire 2020 election. In an era in which Republican voters are hesitant to donate to the GOP as an organization, they’re instead donating directly (and big time) to lawmakers such as Greene whom they feel they can trust.
Gaetz is in a similar position. Despite being embattled over allegations of sex trafficking (although he has thus far not been charged with anything), he remains popular among Republicans, is regularly featured on major outlets such as Fox News, has a Twitter following of over one million, and has raised $1.8 million through March.
In politics, money is not valuable just for what it can do for your own campaign, but for how it can be used to help others amenable to your cause.
This is why the party leadership traditionally wields so much power; they control organizations such as the National Republican Congressional Committee, which sends money to GOP lawmakers needing a boost for their reelection bids. Anyone who doesn’t toe the line with leadership is deprived of funds from the committee.
But Gaetz and Greene are now the ones doling out the cash. Gaetz last year donated to dozens of House Republicans. Greene donated $175,000 to the House GOP campaign arm shortly before Democrats stripped her of her committee assignments.
It’s simple: If you show you understand the issues facing the Republic and demonstrate a willingness to take the socialists head on, conservatives will rally behind you, as they have for Greene and Gaetz.
Constitutionalists should hold true to their convictions and then leverage the power of social media and e-mail marketing to create their own fundraising infrastructure that will not only allow them to be independent of the establishment, but enable them to support other America First lawmakers — thereby weakening the influence of the GOP gatekeepers.
