By ousting Reince Priebus, the president is severing one of his few remaining ties to the GOP.
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It was a mismatch from the start. As RNC chairman, Priebus had two primary responsibilities: dialing for dollars (typically three to five hours each day) and sorting out disputes among his 168 members to keep everyone happy. Key administrative functions were mostly handled by other RNC staff, including Priebus’ own chief of staff; some associates feared that Priebus’ skill set simply would not translate to the new job. Making success all the less likely was the Wisconsinite’s disposition: laid back, naturally soft-spoken and nonconfrontational, a classic people pleaser. Priebus kept a mini-fridge stocked with Miller Lite in his RNC office and would later hold occasional Friday happy hours in his West Wing suite, inviting officials from across the building to grab a can of beer or a Solo cup of wine and commiserate about the week that had been. This calm, consensus-minded approach made Priebus a beloved party chairman, and Republicans held out hope that it would make him a good chief of staff. But it didn’t. Trump trampled Priebus from Day One, sending out press secretary Sean Spicer, a longtime Preibus ally, to deliver a demonstrably false rant about the inaugural crowd size. Trump resented the idea that his chief of staff was there to tame him, and resented even more the notion that Priebus was the conduit to a Republican Party he had conquered.
But Priebus was the conduit. By firing him, Trump has severed a critical connection to his own party—not simply to major donors and GOP congressional leaders, but to the unruly, broader constellation of conservative-affiliated organizations and individuals that Priebus had spent five years corralling. He was effortlessly tagged as an “establishment” figure—inevitably, given his title atop the party—but Priebus was a specialist at coalition-building. He convened regular meetings as RNC chairman with influential players in the conservative movement, picking their brains and taking their temperatures on various issues. That continued as chief of staff: Priebus spoke by phone with prominent activists, such as the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, at least once a week. There is a meeting scheduled at the White House this Wednesday of the Conservative Action Project—an umbrella group that brings together leaders from across the right—and Priebus was planning to attend. It was this kind of systematic outreach that made Priebus, whatever his flaws as a West Wing manager, an essential lieutenant for Trump.
There is no question, however, that Priebus’ absence will echo loudest on Capitol Hill—particularly in the speaker’s office. Ryan’s team had heard whispers for months of Priebus’ possible departure, but the news was nonetheless a dagger, especially on the heels of a health care defeat and at the dawn of tax-reform season. Ryan and Priebus, both Green Bay Packers fans and local beer loyalists, have been friends for decades; Ryan’s former chief of staff, Andy Speth, was Priebus’ college roommate at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Priebus was the first call Ryan made when things got hairy this year, and vice versa. Working with a West Wing that contains few other true allies—and with a volatile president who has viewed him suspiciously ever since the speaker accused him of making “the textbook definition of a racist comment” about a Hispanic-American judge—Ryan saw Priebus as his staunchest ally and bunker mate. And now he’s gone.
In his place is John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general and respected disciplinarian whose mandate is to succeed where Priebus failed: imposing order and organization on a chaotic White House. Kelly, however, is not a political figure; he did not support (or oppose) Trump’s campaign, and is not known to hold strong political or ideological inclinations. Looking around Trump’s inner circle, there is communications director Anthony Scaramucci, a political novice who in the past donated to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton; chief strategist Steve Bannon, who used Breitbart to try and burn the Republican Party to the ground; National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, a lifelong Democrat; director of strategic communication Hope Hicks, who has zero history with GOP politics; and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, a pair of self-professed Manhattan progressives. Of Trump’s closest advisers, only Mike Pence has any association with the Republican Party.
This no longer seems accidental. Trump has, since taking office, consistently referred to Republicans as though he is not one himself—it’s invariably “they” or “them.” Unlike past presidents of his party, Trump entered the White House with few personal relationships with prominent Republicans: donors, lobbyists, party activists, politicians. This liberated him to say whatever he pleased as a candidate, and, by firing Priebus, Trump might feel similarly liberated. The fear now, among Republicans in his administration and on Capitol Hill, is that Trump will turn against the party, waging rhetorical warfare against a straw-man GOP whom he blames for the legislative failures and swamp-stained inertia that has bedeviled his young presidency. It would represent a new, harsher type of triangulation, turning his base against the politicians of his own party that they elected.
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Without Priebus, Trump Is a Man Without a Party https://t.co/Gcac6VFcru
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) July 31, 2017
Some people believe that Trump is part of a plot to finish off an already weakened Republican Party. He ran for president as a Republican, but he had been a Democrat who contributed to and/or socialized with Democrats including the Clintons. That should have set off alarm bells among his self-described conservative supporters, but they supported Trump because he told them what they wanted to hear and well, he wasn’t Hillary.
So now that he is president, Trump will show his true colors. He doesn’t have to pretend he is this conservative Republican or even any old Republican. He no longer has to associate with Republicans, especially those in Congress. If he really is a Republican, why won’t he work with them? He has done essentially nothing to further his so-called agenda. He has left it to others to get things done, and when they, without Trump’s input, fail to deliver, Trump can go around on his never-ending campaign trips or on Twitter to complain. Doing so will poison the minds of voters who will lay the blame for failure on the party. Starting next year and again in 2020, Republican candidates will be defeated, and you can expect the Democrats to control the presidency and both houses of congress. The Republican Party’s destruction will then be complete.
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