"Circular Firing Squad"
Last Friday, we addressed how a party led by someone who is divorced from reality will face unsolvable problems when the real world clashes with his fantasy dictates.
We’re seeing an example of this play out right now in the Senate over the thing that Donald Trump craves most—political survival.
The subject is passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or SAVE Act, which Trump is demanding in the hope that it will disenfranchise millions of voters poised to reject his party this fall. His demands have created what some Republican senators are calling a “circular firing squad” in the Senate.
The issue is that the SAVE Act does not have the votes to pass the Senate. It will almost certainly never have the votes to pass the Senate. That’s the reality that Trump and his Senate supporters are ignoring.
Here’s how The Hill newspaper described the situation:
Trump and his allies are warning that if Senate Republicans don’t pull out all the stops to pass the bill, they will face the wrath of MAGA voters. That threat is angering Senate GOP critics of the bill, who think it’s poorly drafted and has no chance of passing. They say threats to punish them for not rallying behind the bill will only backfire as the party heads into a midterm election facing strong political headwinds, such as Trump’s low approval ratings and voter dissatisfaction over inflation and the economy.
Trump has pressed the Senate to circumvent the filibuster to allow the bill to pass with 50 votes, but that effort has gone nowhere because the votes to do it do not exist. Short of that, some of Trump’s Senate allies—backed by what Politico calls “an Elon Musk-driven public pressure campaign”—want to force Democrats into a talking filibuster, believing their opposition will crumble if they have to hold the floor for an extended period of time to defend their position.
In the real world, there is no reason to believe this tactic will work, and it’s tearing apart the Republican conference.
Those divisions were exacerbated when Trump ally Mike Lee posted on social media that Republicans who oppose the talking filibuster should face primary challenges.
Retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tills said, “To me, it’s disingenuous to say we’re going to go out here and we’re going to bring the bill, make [its virtues] apparent to the American people, and then [Lee is] out there the night before we’re about to go on the bill and threatening primaries for people who don’t get on board for something he knows he doesn’t have support for.”
Another Republican spoke anonymously and was more blunt: “a lot of [Republicans] are sick of Mike Lee fundraising off of” the talking filibuster strategy.
The internal rupture is squeezing Republican leadership. Majority Leader John Thune, who recognizes that a talking filibuster will not work to get the bill passed, nonetheless refused to side with either faction when asked where he stands, saying only, “I want to keep the Republican majority.”
The threat to that majority is what’s powering the chaos.
Let’s step back and take a look at things happening in the larger political world that are driving Republicans to the brink.
