WASHINGTON — Republicans are in denial.
After Democrats painted America blue on Election Day — winning an estimated 83-seat majority, according to NBC News — the GOP is largely tripling down on its Trump-infused agenda.
“We've earned what happened. We earned it as a party. It's not Donald Trump. Do not — I don't want to hear anything about blaming Donald Trump for this,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) yelled at reporters on the Capitol steps Tuesday night.
While Nehls is retiring, the Republican Conference for the upcoming 120th Congress seems to agree with his assessment of the midterms. On Tuesday, they followed Trump’s lead and tapped firebrand Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to replace outgoing Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
“Jim Jordan's going to be great,” Nehls continued. “We need a few more Jim Jordans in the world.”
The new dynamics, which appear to be the same as the old dynamics, have Democrats salivating.
“What do you make of them picking Jim Jordan?” Raw Story asked progressive “Squad” leader Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
“Oh my God!” Ocasio-Cortez told Raw Story. “The fact that Republicans, after the biggest historic shellacking in modern history, both appointed Stephen Miller as chief of staff and Jim Jordan as minority leader, they have learned nothing — and they are going to continue their downward spiral.”
Ask most any of the Republicans who won reelection last Tuesday and there’s not much they’d change.
“This was Watergate all over again,” Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) told Raw Story. “That was the last time my district was held by a Democrat. Now, thankfully, I won convincingly. But no, I don't think we could have done anything different and gotten any different result.”
The outgoing chair of the House Agriculture Committee kept the blue wave at bay and won a tenth term in Congress.
“Is there any change in message you guys need?” Raw Story pressed.
“Well, I think we're still doing the autopsy on that,” Thompson said. “After an event like this, the worst thing can happen is you jump to conclusions quickly. I think, you know, you got to look at the data. You got to drill down. You got to take the pulse, and then you determine what strategy you should employ.”
Others in the GOP are upset with Johnson, which is why many rank-and-file Republicans backed outgoing Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan over current Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA).
“Given the magnitude of the shellacking, I think it's probably best to move on with a new team,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) told Raw Story.
Harris chairs the far-right House Freedom Caucus. While he wouldn’t really make any changes to Trump’s agenda, he’s upset that Johnson kept the House out of session and on the campaign trail for much of this past year.
“It looked like we stopped doing anything for the last year and a half, and I think the American people expect us to continue working for them,” Harris said. “Right up to the very end when, you know, leadership didn't put a tax break for gas and diesel on the floor, you know, I think it's just some decisions were made that people didn't agree with.”
While a fuel tax break would do little to ease the high prices at the pump due to the ongoing Iran war, rank-and-file Republicans say the optics would have been better for GOP incumbents.
Showing voters more energy and vigor is one thing, but most veteran Republicans are refusing to critique their party’s agenda even in the wake of the party’s historic losses.
“But now looking back, is there anything the party should have changed or done differently?” Raw Story asked 16-term Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL).
“I just don't know,” Aderholt said. “I can't point to what, like, we should have done this or that different. I think it was just sort of a perfect storm.”
“And so no real new direction for your party going forward?” Raw Story pressed
“We obviously need to make some changes, but I think it's got to be in coordination with the White House,” Aderholt said. “So it's not going to be just politically driven. So we've got to get on the same team.”
That ties with the fact that few are publicly criticizing the outgoing speaker.
“So I don't think anybody’s a continuation of Mike [Johnson] — whom I have the greatest respect for — but you pay a price for things that are beyond your control, and everything was really beyond his control,” Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) told Raw Story.
There’s a difference between the national mood and the mood of the GOP base, and it seems congressional Republicans are following Trump’s lead and trying to excite, not expand, the party’s base in the coming days, months and years.
“If you’d have spent any time in the field the last few years with the Republican base, you’d know that they were exclusively on the president's side,” Lucas, who just won his 17th term in Congress, said. “So sometimes you have to go with the crowd when they think they want something, as opposed to telling them, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ This is a representative democracy.”