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On Balance | Under Trump’s influence, the Republican Party’s slide into lies and support for violence continues
- While some thought the certification of Biden’s win after the ransacking of the Capitol would be the beginning of the end for Trump, the opposite has occurred
- Senator Chuck Grassley’s appearance alongside Trump at a rally over the weekend is evidence of this
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The dominoes are falling fast in the American Republican Party.
The latest one to fall under former US president Donald Trump’s influence is Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, the formerly traditional conservative who now appears to have joined the most dangerous of the Republican Party’s three factions.
For those who might have been avoiding developments in the disintegration of the American political order, let’s have a quick refresher on the party’s three-way split.
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Group A comprises those who insist without evidence that the 2020 election was stolen and defend the January 6 insurrectionists as patriots. Group B are those who may not buy the baseless election-fraud narrative, nor condone armed attacks on the American government, but who will not speak their minds in the interest of holding onto, or regaining, power.
Group C, the smallest, comprises figures like Liz Cheney, vice-chair of the House committee investigating the January 6 riot, and Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger, who along with Cheney and eight others among dozens of Republicans in the chamber, voted to impeach Trump for inciting the attack.
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We can also consider Group C to be the vestiges of the Republican Party that waxed more than waned in terms of policy influence from the administrations of Dwight Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush, the one that made Ronald Reagan the centrepiece of their mantle.
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