Donald Trump’s hostile takeover of the Republican Party’s apparatus should come with a stark warning: Be careful what you wish for. By remaking the Republican National Committee in his image, Trump is actually making it harder for him to win in November, not to mention the Republicans down ballot. Even if he does eke out a win, he’ll likely have fewer members of Congress to help him out as a result of his meddling.
Trump has long had a hold on the GOP, as can be seen from his near-clean sweep of the party’s presidential primaries. But with the installation of his ally Michael Whatley and daughter-in-law Lara Trump as heads of the Republican National Committee, he’s now formally in control of the party apparatus and quickly making his stamp on the organization.
An army of Trump-installed loyalists are replacing senior staffers to run the Republican National Committee. With the general election just eight months away, don’t expect this to look anything like a typical operation focused on getting out the vote, reaching out to undecided voters, standardizing messaging across campaigns and doing other normal tasks. Instead, this will be a group solely devoted to the glorification of Trump.
The problem is, this approach doesn’t work. Building the RNC as a cult of personality will lead to groupthink, as staffers make bad strategic moves because they can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t think like they do. It will lead to self-censoring, as staffers who have ideas that might rub Trump the wrong way will keep their heads down. And it will set the party up for another string of defeats, all the way up the ballot to Trump himself.
I ran the RNC from 2009 to 2011, so I know a thing or two about building a national party. If Trump’s campaign was based in reality, the RNC would spend the next eight months investing in competitive races up and down the ballot to build the kind of atmosphere in which a Republican presidential candidate can win handily. However,…
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