According to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight's Seth Masket, any chance that the Republican Party will return to its more moderate ways is being undercut by supporters of Donald Trump who are taking over local parties and punishing any lawmaker who doesn't toe the Trump line.
As Masket notes, censuring of candidates used to be a rare occurrence but is now common since the former president was swept into office in 2016, with Republican motions leaping from zero in 2019 to a whopping 23 in 2021.
According to his analysis, censures have become the tool of choice of far-right activists as they attempt to purge the party of candidates who keep their distance from Trump and the conspiracies he espouses.
Calling their efforts a "growing form of radicalism," Masket points out censures may be symbolic, but they can also be damaging to a lawmaker's chances of re-election.
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"The censure is, by definition, a symbolic act: It does not actually remove anyone from office or strip anyone of power. In fact, the censure has historically carried little weight, although it can signal to the officeholder that they are losing standing with their party and that their renomination is likely in jeopardy," he wrote before adding, "It’s typical for the losing party in a presidential race to undergo some sort of period of self-reflection after its loss, trying to come up with a narrative that will help guide it in future elections. But what Republicans have gone through since 2020 is something of a departure, with many in the party arguing that former President Donald Trump didn’t actually lose. Moreover, these election deniers haven’t just tried to delegitimize the 2020 election results, they’ve also spearheaded an effort to rebuke Republicans who have said Trump lost."
According to the analysis, lack of support for Trump and critical comments about the Jan. 6 insurrectionists have contributed to the fracturing of the local parties.
"In 2021, I found, there was just a dramatic increase in county-level censures, especially among Republican county parties. Republican county parties censured 23 GOP officeholders in 2021 compared to Democrats’ five, and what’s more, most Republican censures were tied in some way to the 2020 election, the subsequent Jan. 6 insurrection or the ensuing fallout," he explained.
"All of this points to yet another signal of a Republican Party undergoing a purge," he suggested. "Parties often wage ideological fights in their primary contests, but primaries take time. In this rash of recent censures, we’re seeing county party leaders trying to more emphatically assert which faction of the party is in charge, and as I’ve documented above, that could dramatically reshape the GOP at its most fundamental levels of government."
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