But the Nevada Republican Party isn't even the worst of
them right now.
Yes, sure, they are about to hold two separate and
incompatible elections for the same office,
each with different names on the ballot,
each in the same week but on different days.
And the Nevada State Republican Party reportedly has only one
paid full time staffer right now,
and their state party chairman is under felony indictment and
about to stand trial.
Pity the Nevada Republican Party right now,
but they are better off than some of the others.
At least they have a state party chair.
An indicted one, yes, but he's
has a job
in a nearby Arizona big swing state.
The Republican state party chair there just resigned in a
weird bribery and
leaked tape scandal. In Florida.
Big important state. The Republican state party chair there was
just fired against his will.
In Michigan, big important swing state,
the Republican Party chair was just removed,
but she refuses to leave.
Both she and the guy who might be her replacement
showed up the at the Republican Party's annual winter meeting
this weekend,
both claiming to be the chair of the Michigan Republican
Party.
The RNC has no idea what to do with this
problem,
with two different people claiming to be the chair of
the state party for the purposes of the meeting.
This weekend they officially listed the Michigan Republican Party Chairman
job as vacant
and they decided when both of the people who claim
to be the chairman showed up.
They decided they would give passes to the meeting to
both of the people who claimed to be the chair
of the Michigan State party.
But they only gave them guest passes,
not like member passes or
state party chair passes. So as guests,
neither of them was able to vote on anything or
participate in anything official.
Then I mentioned that it's an election year and that
that's one of the most important swing states in the
country.
Heading into the big Republican Party meeting this weekend,
it seemed like the national chair of the Republican Party
might be thrown out of her job too.
And you know that, you know,
makes sense just from a 30,000 foot perspective.
Even if you knew nothing about her,
right? If if you if you don't want to blame
the
the party's electoral woes
since Donald Trump first came on the scene in 2016.
If you don't want to blame the party's electoral woes
on him,
well, she would be the obvious other person to blame
as the chair of the Republican Party during that time.
I mean, Donald Trump became president in January 2017.
He named her Ronna McDaniel to be the chair of
the Republican Party in 2017.
In her first election thereafter in 2018,
the Republican Party lost 40 seats and lost the House.
The Republicans that year lost the popular vote in those
midterm elections by the largest margin since the
1980s.
Then, in the next election,
in 2020, the Republicans lost the White House and the
Senate,
as well as the House that they had previously lost,
Trump and Ronna Romney. McDaniel managed to lose both chambers
of Congress and the presidency in a single term,
which is the first time that had happened since her
Herbert Hoover.
Then next election, 2022. With Ronna Romney McDaniel still in
charge at the RNC and Trump still effectively leading his
party from the sidelines,
the Republicans turned in a performance in the
2022 midterms. That was the worst performance by a party
not holding the White House in decades,
arguably in a century,
even in 2023. Last year,
off your elections, Democrats did unexpectedly well in elections in
Virginia and Kentucky and Ohio and every single darn place
that held any sort of referendum on abortion rights after
Trump appointed judges overturned Roe versus Wade.
And now it's 2024 and Trump is very much still
in charge,
and three swing state Republican parties and counting are in
total meltdown.
But you're not allowed to blame Trump for any of
that.
And so, heading into the Republican Party's meeting,
big annual winter meeting this weekend,
these were the headlines about the Republican Party chair,
mega Republicans rage at Ronna McDaniel over RNC failures.
Got to blame someone? Let's throw her out.
Ronna Romney McDaniel did seem to survive the RN CS
weekend meeting. At least it seemed that way when when
things wrapped up at their big meeting on Saturday.
But then on Sunday morning,
Trump went back on Fox and said about Ronna Romney
McDaniel quote,
I think she did OK initially in the RNCI would
say right now there will probably be some changes made.
So he's saying he wants her out
now he's just done another interview with another right wing
network where he said that she should be out of
her job.
He was asked, quote, is it time for Ronna McDaniel
to step aside?
He responded, Well, I think she knows that.
I think she understands that
Trump now put out a statement this evening saying that
he will make his pronouncement on her fate later this
month after the Republican primary in South Carolina.
OK, sure.
But listen,
maybe you don't need a party
or, or you don't need much of one each.
Each of the two major political parties in our country
has done OK in previous election years,
even when the parties themselves were organizationally kind of a
mess.
What is different here? What's important for all of us
here in this moment
is that the Republican Party now,
in the age of Trump,
appears to be not just a mess.
They appear to be sort of dissolving themselves
whatever happens to to Ronna,
Romney, McDaniel. And you know,
however, her leadership at the Republican National Committee is going
to come to an end.
The thing that she will likely go down for in
history
is the moment in 2020 when under her leadership,
the party decided there would no longer be a Republican
Party platform.
They decided that, officially and explicitly,
the Republican Party would no longer stand for any particular
thing
other than generically saying that they supported Trump's overall
agenda. We stand for nothing except
whatever the leader wants.
That was a signal moment,
and it's a moment right now to have all of
this chaos in state Republican parties,
including in in some of the most important states in
the country for the election.
I mean, if you are a Republican voter in Nevada,
when do you vote for your choice for a Republican
Party presidential candidate this week?
Do you vote tomorrow? Do you vote Thursday?
You can vote in both.
How is that possible that you can vote in both?
Well, apparently that's because one's the official event run by
the state,
which doesn't count. And one's not an official state-run event,
but it's the one that they're counting,
because that's what Trump wanted.
OK, Does that make sense?
Do you know how you're spending your week?
And let's hope this counting's done before the state party
chairman is due in court
to face his felony charges related to allegedly trying to
falsify the results of the last election in that state.
That's how Trump wants it.
So that's his guy. So that's what Nevada Republicans are
supposed to do this week.
And no, let's not have any real Republican primary debates
this whole year,
at least none that include the front running candidate,
because that's also how he wants it.
So that's what we'll do.
And no, let's not have general election debates this year
either,
because in 2020, Trump got the Republican Party under Ronna
McDaniel to say that the Republican Party will no longer
allow its candidates to participate in events sponsored by the
Commission on Presidential Debates, which is overseeing general election debates
between presidential candidates for decades.
He didn't want that, so we had the RNC pull
out of that.
So to recap,
it's a political party with no party platform,
no normal nominating process for its nominees,
no primary debates, and no general election debates.
They're just coming off the worst,
back-to-back electoral performance by any party since before FDR.
And it's all because it's what Trump wants.
And of course, why would anything else matter?
Because who could doubt the political instincts of a man
with this kind of a track record,
right, with this kind of an electoral track record?
A man who handed out fake I'm an auto worker
signs in Michigan at a fake union event and then
filed the receipts for it publicly.
Who could doubt a man with political instincts of that
level of genius?
Why have a political party when you can just follow
wherever he's leading?
Political parties are not the most important institutions in a
democracy,
but they are part of it.
And right now in our country,
one of our two major political parties is dissolving itself
and just tonight potentially preparing to oust yet another of
its top leaders,
all in the service of just doing stuff for their
great leader instead of doing normal party stuff and normal
democracy stuff anymore.
And I don't know how many of you watching this
tonight,
you know, are are are mourning the illness and potential
demise of the Republican Party as an institution.
I understand. But if we are going to stay a
democracy with A2 party system,
there do need to be two parties of some kind
or we're not that kind of system anymore.
We're going to have to develop into something else.
I mean, right now, what we are very fast becoming
is one party on one side and just a guy
on the other.
A guy who
this week is going before a United States Supreme Court
that is going to decide if maybe he might be
ineligible to ever hold federal office ever again.
What
do you call that kind of a system?
What could possibly go wrong?