Devin Nunes' resignation highlights a new problem Republicans are having with Trump: columnist
In a column for the Washington Post, Bloomberg political analyst Jonathan Bernstein suggested that the abrupt resignation announcement from Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA) -- effective at the end of the year -- is yet another sign of how deeply Donald Trump has disrupted the historical power structure of the Republican Party.
Nunes, who is leaving Congress after representing his district since 2013, reportedly is going to work for Trump heading up his fledgling social media empire and walking away from potentially becoming the chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee should the Republicans reclaim the House in 2022 as expected.
That, in turn, made his departure curious to Washington insiders who note that the goal of almost every lawmaker -- on both sides of the aisle -- to get re-elected and continue to gain power.
As Berstein notes, holding a prominent leadership position in the party used to be desirable, but since the advent of Trump as the party's face -- and voice -- rising to prominence can come with pitfalls.
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To illustrate his point, Bernstein wrote, "In the past, chairing that committee would’ve been worth sticking around for years, even decades; in some ways, it was a more important position than speaker of the House. But committees have declined in importance as the chamber has become more centralized. What’s more, the relatively frequent turnover of party majorities means we’re unlikely to see a stretch such as that from 1957 through 1994, in which the committee had only three chairmen over an almost 40-year period."
However, as he notes, even a brief stint could put a GOP lawmaker at the mercy of Trump's constant interference and complaints.
"To be perhaps a bit unfair, if in 1995 many Republican politicians still cared about public policy, by 2015 they were impressed by someone pretending to care about policy. Now it appears that even the pretense is gone. Nunes’s decision might also suggest something about Trump," he wrote. "Suppose that Nunes is mostly interested in being loyal to the former president. Trump’s conception of loyalty doesn’t have much wiggle room; he expects people to do what he wants, whether it’s feasible or not. But chairing Ways and Means is a position of responsibility. It could put Nunes in the position of having to vote for things that Trump might not support."
Explaining that with leadership comes taking both the good and the bad, Trump has the potential to turn the bad into career-ending which may make some lawmakers pass on heading committees in order to escape the former president's wrath.
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That, in the long term, could hurt the Republican Party.
"Trump, and Trump-style politics, makes absorbing blame a lot more painful than it normally would be — as can be seen in the former president’s attacks on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over the debt limit, or, for that matter, in what happened to former Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6," the column explained before adding, "... at least as long as Trump is still influential — there appears to be some serious disincentives for others in the party to take on important leadership roles. Both changes will likely make it even harder for the party to govern effectively."
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