Despite most having voting records strongly supporting the Trump agenda, the GOP members of the Senate who sided with Democrats to convict former President Trump are facing backlash in their home states. Are they heroes or turncoats?
Summary
The seven Republican senators who voted to convict former President Trump in his second impeachment are facing backlash from GOP groups in the home states.
- Just yesterday, North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, who has announced he will not be seeking reelection, was censured by the state’s Republican party central committee, citing his conviction vote.
- While the Utah GOP has announced no intention to censure Senator Mitt Romney for his vote to convict Trump, an unnamed group is circulating an online petition urging a censure while also calling out the Utah Republican Party for not punishing Romney.
- In Louisiana, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy was censured by the Republican Party of Louisiana just hours after Trump’s acquittal in the Senate.
- Pat Toomey, Republican senator from Pennsylvania is also facing reproval as county organizations are working with the state party to consider a censure of Toomey.
- Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse is expected to face a censure vote after his vote to convict Trump and his comments surrounding impeachment.
- Business Insider singled out Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, whose vote to convict Trump is “insulated from a primary challenge” due to Alaska’s recent changes in election format, while also quoting Sasse’ response to the Nebraska GOP: “But let’s be clear about why this is happening. It’s because I still believe, as you used to, that politics isn’t about the weird worship of one dude.”
- Vox characterized the censure and disapproval of the seven senators as clear evidence of Trump’s continued popularity among grassroots Republicans.
- The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran an editorial that could easily have run in any of dozens of mainstream papers, calling the Republicans who voted to convict Trump “heroes”, saying “America needs two vibrant parties”, leaving unsaid the suggestion that the two parties should do what just one party (the Democrats) wants to do.
- Townhall.com contributor Jeff Crouere disingenuously compared Republican senators, six of which voted “with Trump” in the Senate a majority of the time, to members of The Lincoln Project, a scam-PAC run by child sexual predators and Never-Trump Republicans who dox and hack their own employees.
- Newsmax ran individual stories for most Republican senators who voted to convict Trump, including Romney, Maine’s Susan Collins, Burr, and Toomey.
- OANN reported on Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who voted to impeach former President Trump in the House, and correspondence he received from his own family denouncing him for impeaching the president.
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
