Jettisoned by Trump, Ronna McDaniel tried a pivot into media, only to discover accountability exists outside of Donald’s cult

Ron­na Rom­ney McDaniel used a famous fam­i­ly name as she rose in Michi­gan pol­i­tics, until she was tapped by Don­ald Trump to chair the Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee. Trump direct­ed her to stop using the name “Rom­ney”. McDaniel not only com­plied but went on to attack Uncle Mitt for “feed­ing into what the Democ­rats and media want.”

Ulti­mate­ly, it didn’t help McDaniel. Despite aid­ing in Trump’s effort to over­turn results of the 2020 elec­tion, buy­ing into the fake elec­tor scheme, she was deemed insuf­fi­cient­ly loy­al. Trump deposed McDaniel and installed his daugh­ter-in-law Lara as co-chair of the party.

The Trumpi­fi­ca­tion of the Repub­li­can Par­ty has proven a char­ac­ter test for its office­hold­ers and candidates. 

“The Don­ald” insists on absolute, unques­tioned loy­al­ty. He works to purge those who leave the cult, wit­ness Washington’s six-term U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, now a can­di­date for state-lev­el office (Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands). 

He also stiffs those who’ve done his bid­ding, wit­ness Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr.

Some Repub­li­can politi­cians have met the chal­lenge of history. 

Mar­garet Chase Smith, R‑Maine, deliv­ered a famous “Dec­la­ra­tion of Con­science” against the Red-bait­ing of Sen­a­tor Joseph McCarthy. Tail Gun­ner Joe would sneer at Smith and her Repub­li­can fol­low­ers as “Snow White and the six dwarfs.” In the sum­mer of 1974, Sen­ate GOP Leader Hugh Scott and col­leagues went to the White House, telling Pres­i­dent Nixon to vol­un­tar­i­ly leave or face con­vic­tion in an impeach­ment trial.

Such folk are a crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered species now. 

Sen­a­tor Mitt Rom­ney, R‑Utah, was the only Repub­li­can sen­a­tor to vote for con­vic­tion at the first Trump impeach­ment tri­al. Even after the Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021, insur­rec­tion, only sev­en of fifty Repub­li­can sen­a­tors vot­ed “Guilty”. Sen­a­tor Lisa Murkows­ki, R‑Alaska, has said she did not and will not vote for Trump.

Oth­er­wise, today’s Repub­li­can politi­cians have scram­bled to recast them­selves. Entre­pre­neur-author (“Hill­bil­ly Ele­gy”) J.D. Vance in 2016 scorned Trump as “nox­ious” and “rep­re­hen­si­ble,” vot­ing for Hillary Clin­ton in 2016 and say­ing at one point: “What an idiot.”

Vance turned acolyte in 2022 as he ran for Sen­ate in Ohio, and received both an endorse­ment and scorn from the ex-pres­i­dent. Trump came to the Buck­eye State to cam­paign for Vance, only to say: “J.D. is kiss­ing my ass. He wants my sup­port big time.” Vance would become an ear­ly Trump-in-2024 supporter.

Sen­ate Repub­li­can Leader Mitch McConnell blamed Trump for “dis­grace­ful” acts in the Jan­u­ary 6th insur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capi­tol, say­ing he was “moral­ly respon­si­ble” for the siege and the assault on Amer­i­ca’s citadel of democ­ra­cy. In McConnell’s words, Trump’s “actions pre­ced­ing the riot were a dis­grace­ful dere­lic­tion of duty.”

Yet, McConnell refused to vote to con­vict and remove Trump from office. Ear­li­er this month, McConnell endorsed a Trump return to the White House, say­ing: “It is abun­dant­ly clear that for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump has earned the req­ui­site sup­port of Repub­li­can vot­ers to be our nom­i­nee for Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.”

Why the lack of courage? There is the fear of being purged, pri­maried, or chal­lenged, as hap­pened with Her­rera Beut­ler in this state. Trumpi­fi­ca­tion has pro­duced a hard-right Repub­li­can lead­er­ship. Con­sid­er the exam­ple of Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Jim Walsh. The North Car­oli­na Repub­li­can Par­ty cen­sured Sen­a­tor Richard Burr in 2021 – he vot­ed to con­vict Trump – and cen­sured Sen­a­tor Thom Tillis last June.

When Burr retired from the Sen­ate, GOP vot­ers spurned ex-Gov­er­nor Pat McCro­ry in favor of Trump-endorsed Ted Budd.  Numer­ous tra­di­tion­al, coun­try club Repub­li­cans have cho­sen to leave Con­gress, like House Speak­ers John Boehn­er and Paul Ryan.

Oth­ers have cut the cloth of their con­science to fit the fash­ion of the times. Elise Ste­fanik was a young Har­vard grad­u­ate and aide to Speak­er Ryan. She won elec­tion, run­ning as a busi­ness-friend­ly Repub­li­can with some rea­son­able posi­tions, as one of Con­gress’ youngest mem­bers.  She became, almost overnight, a Trump zealot. Why? When Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Liz Cheney, R‑Wyoming, was purged from her post in the House Repub­li­can lead­er­ship, Ste­fanik was posi­tioned to take her place. 

The Trump move­ment is a major­i­ty in the Repub­li­can Par­ty but a minor­i­ty in the coun­try. Extreme can­di­dates are cap­tur­ing Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tions but los­ing winnable gen­er­al elec­tion races. Con­sid­er Kari Lake’s failed guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­da­cy in Ari­zona or MAGA extrem­ist Joe Kent’s loss to Marie Glue­senkamp Perez in this state.

North Car­oli­na Repub­li­cans have just giv­en their guber­na­to­r­i­al nom­i­na­tion to Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Mark Robin­son, who once opined on Face­book: “This fool­ish­ness about Hitler dis­arm­ing mil­lions of Jews and then march­ing them off to con­cen­tra­tion camps is a bunch of hog­wash.” Not sur­pris­ing­ly, the Democ­rats’ nom­i­nee – Attor­ney Gen­er­al Josh Stein – enjoyed a full house on a recent fundrais­ing for­ay to Seat­tle. So, two years ago, did Pennsylvania’s Attor­ney Gen­er­al Josh Shapiro, who was elect­ed gov­er­nor by a land­slide over a MAGA elec­tion denier.

Ulti­mate­ly, too, Trump acolytes find them­selves excom­mu­ni­cat­ed from the Trump cult. With The Don­ald, it’s all about Trump all of the time.

Biden’s pre­de­ces­sor put it best, once declar­ing: “The show is Trump and it is a sold-out per­for­mance every­where.” He will turn on polit­i­cal sup­port­ers just as he has for years hung his con­trac­tors and lawyers out to dry.

Ron­na McDaniel has learned the hard way. 

In 2019, Trump described her as “the most aggres­sive human being I’ve ever met.” He told a 2020 ral­ly: “We love her. She’s fan­tas­tic.” By this Feb­ru­ary, how­ev­er, he was show­ing her the door, telling a Fox News inter­view­er: “I think she did O.K. ini­tial­ly at the RNC. I will say right now there will prob­a­bly be some changes made.”

Hav­ing been boot­ed from the RNC, McDaniel signed up last Fri­day to be an NBC pun­dit at a report­ed $300,000 a year. She went on Meet the Press to acknowl­edge for the first time that Joe Biden won the 2020 elec­tion. But years of car­ry­ing water for Trump brought a del­uge of reac­tion. Ex-host Chuck Todd blast­ed his own net­work for the hire. Top-rat­ed MSNBC host Rachel Mad­dow fol­lowed on Mon­day with a half-hour critique.

NBC News jet­ti­soned McDaniel four days after she was hired. 

She, and oth­er Trump pan­der bears, will not be treat­ed kind­ly by history.