It’s been about a month since former President Donald Trump’s hand-picked allies took the reins of the Republican National Committee — the most tangible example of Trump’s ever-tightening grip on the Republican Party apparatus . But the recovery is not going well.
The new committee chair, Michael Whatley, and co-chair, Lara Trump, immediately ordered a purge of the organization after taking office. Dozens of RNC employees have been fired or asked to resign and reapply for jobs. In a heartbreaking development, as my colleague Hayes Brown explained, candidates were asked for their opinions on whether the 2020 election was rigged.
Now, new reports indicate that even the purge process was a disaster. A sign of the random nature of the massive layoffs, most former employees would have been offered a job again. This raises the question of why their jobs were eliminated in the first place. The rehiring process is also going poorly. According to Axios, some rehired staff members “aren’t sure what their role is.”
The result is a critical brain drain from the RNC just as the general election actually begins. The Guardian reports that several sources familiar with the matter say some staffers have refused to return: “The situation means the RNC was left without people with deep knowledge of election operations on the Republican Party central committee. »
It’s unclear what motivated people to turn down rehire opportunities. The Guardian article speculates that part of this could be linked to “loyalty tests” during interviews. Alternatively, this could also be due in part to the fact that the new RNC is moving some of its employees, like its data team, to Palm Beach, Florida, to integrate with the Trump campaign and merge further campaign and party operations.
But whatever the reasoning, it’s clear that a premature rush to clean out the RNC sidelined talent who could have helped Trump and the party achieve their goals. Colloquially, some might call this an “own goal”.
There is also confusion within the RNC about policy goals. The committee originally said it planned to scrap an early voting initiative, but Whatley backtracked. All of this is happening, mind you, as Republicans are beginning to recognize that Trump’s stigmatization of early voting as unreliable is harming the Republican Party in the voting booth.
Questions also arise about the RNC’s commitment to continuing election denialism — and it’s also not clear that the RNC knows where it stands on the issue. In mid-March, Lara Trump indicated she intended to hire QAnon conspiracy theorist and “Stop the Steal” organizer Scott Presler for the state’s “legal ballot harvesting division.” committee. Days later, the RNC told NBC News that Presler would not become an employee but would serve as a “valuable voice to the RNC,” suggesting an informal advisory role. And just a few days ago, Axios reported that Presler would “register voters at an upcoming RNC event.”
This disarray is in stark contrast to reports earlier this year that Trump’s world was showing unusual discipline and professionalism compared to the former president’s two previous campaigns. The turmoil within the RNC suggests that its disorganized leadership is unsure how far it wants to take the RNC in the direction of becoming a pure vehicle for Trump’s election denial. And firing and then offering to rehire many staffers could reflect a realization among the RNC’s new leadership that there is a tradeoff between complete deference to the MAGA movement and technical know-how.
And Trump thus finds himself faced with a familiar dilemma: an army of yes-men can feel good for a certain type of leader, but it won’t be competent. We can only hope that Trump remains incapable of resolving this predicament of his own making.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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