In an op-ed for The Week , Matthew Walther argued that Republican Party lawmakers have accepted the GOP will likely lose November’s election and are considering the benefits of a future without control over the White House.
“Many of them are relieved at the thought of not even having to pretend to govern as members of a minority party — better yet, in the case of those who expect to lose their seats, at the not very remote possibility of a well-remunerated position with a lobbying or consulting firm,” he wrote.
The columnist pointed in particular to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican lawmakers’ refusal to pass a second coronavirus relief bill, which would ensure funding gets into the hands of Americans who continue to struggle amid the pandemic.
“The fact that Republicans would rather sit back under the pretense that they are holding out for — let me check my notes — COVID liability protection for businesses, tells you everything you need to know. They want to lose.”
According to Walther, a Joe Biden presidency means that the Republican Party’s strategy would echo its approach during Barack Obama’s administration — take aim at socialism and focus on regaining power over the House of Representatives.
In the case that Donald Trump pulls off an electoral win, Walther argued that the GOP might face backlash from the president for its purported disloyalty.
Per New York Magazine , GOP opposition to a relief package before the election is rooted in the purported reality that the majority of Senate Republicans don’t face the risk of losing their seats to a Democrat and view their primary challenge as the most significant threat to their power. The publication noted that the median American state is 6.6 percent more Republican than the country as a whole and highlighted that conservative media is portraying support for bailing out Democrat states as a betrayal of the Republican Party’s values.
Nevertheless, USA Today reported that McConnell and some Republican senators had distanced themselves from Trump. The publication noted that people close to the lawmaker claim he believes the Senate is a “last line of defense” against a Biden presidency. But even if McConnell’s break from the U.S. leader is rooted in a plan to prioritize and protect legislative power, USA Today suggested that it might be too late for the Republican Party to hold onto the Upper Chamber.
Per The Inquisitr , previous reporting from August suggested that Donald Trump Jr. privately believed that his father’s campaign was losing and allegedly predicted a Republican loss in November.
