The GOP is making a very risky bet
Opinion by Paul Waldman
As the GOP struggles to find its way toward a post-Trump future, Republicans are faced with two paths. One is complicated, difficult, labor-intensive and might not yield immediate benefits, even if it’s far more morally defensible. The other is a little uncomfortable but comparatively easy, particularly in the short term.
The first path would mean turning away from their party’s darkest impulses and most repugnant figures in order to fashion an identity with the same substantive beliefs about policy but tethered to reality. The second path would mean trying to keep the extremists in the fold, hoping that they can benefit from the crazy but not let it define them with the broader electorate.
From a purely political standpoint, both paths have dangers. But the latter is the one the GOP is going to follow, even if it runs the risk of alienating moderates and exacerbating its long-term problem of representing a portion of the electorate that gets smaller every year — and only the angriest among them.
At the moment, this concerns Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has gotten far more attention than anyone could have imagined back when she was just another conspiracy-touting social media nitwit. She is now the most famous member of the freshman class of 2021.
But political celebrity is unpredictable; sometimes a figure with remarkable talent bursts into the national consciousness, like Barack Obama did when he gave the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, and sometimes your crazy aunt winds up in Congress, then the other party makes her into a symbol of her own party’s moral depravity, and she becomes a household name.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/05/gop-is-making-very-risky-bet/
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