Republicans are battling for their soul

at next weekend’s WI GOP convention.

Part 1 of 3.

In our Boomer-addled imagination, the Wisconsin Republican convention opens May 16-17 outside of Wausau with a full screen, close-up of Bette Davis. As Margo Channing, she advises, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy weekend.” The long knives are out. Names are being taken, scores settled, loins girded. Should be a fun time! 

JFK said it: Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan. Not beating wimpy Tony Evers in 2022 hurt. Losing to Tammy Baldwin again in 2024 hurt like hell. Failing this April to take back the majority on the state supreme court in the nation’s most expensive court race is an 11 on the scale of pain.

Our diorama displays three camps mud wrestling for control of the Grand Old Party: 1) The Loyalists — longtime Republicans who’ve been there and done that. 2) Upstart and impatient young bulls — many of them paid operatives for Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. In today’s thrilling episode we dissect 3) The Cultists.

 The cultists

The Cultists call themselves “Patriots” but they subordinate the Constitution to the diktats of the Pope of Mar-a-Lago. Cultists despise Speaker Robin Vos for not overturning Trump’s 2020 defeat. They believe chemtrails are poisoning their essential bodily fluids. That Nancy Pelosi staged January 6 insurrection to make Trump look bad. 😛 Hillary was the stewardess on flights to Epstein’s Island.

MAGA Cultists have taken over the party in the Green Bay’s eighth congressional district; tried to do so here in the Madison-based Second District. They see the Deep State under every mattress.

Cultists excoriate the likes of John McCain, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and other RINOs as traitors. Nooses spatter their social media feeds, recalling the January 6 chants to hang Vice President Mike Pence. They work to defeat insufficiently paranoid Republican incumbents. In much of the state, they are the margin of victory or defeat.

A paid operative in state and federal campaigns told the Werkes:

“I consider myself a loyal supporter of Donald Trump but I don’t consider myself MAGA because MAGA has been a cult of sort.”

 Purge their way to defeat

The Cultists precipitated the state party’s edict handed down in April that party officials who trash members as RINOs or “harass or defame” the state party and elected GOP lawmakers will be defrocked.

That followed the raucous caucus in Green Bay’s 8th congressional district that needed sheriff’s deputies to maintain order. Brown, Oconto and Waupaca GOP County chairs describe themselves to local news media as “grassroots activists rallying against the establishment.”

Like Turning Point USA, The Cultists want to defenestrate state chairman Brian Schimming. “We cannot accept state party leadership that continues to lose,” newly elected 8th congressional chairman Ken Sikora said, “Quite honestly, they’ve embarrassed Trump.” 

Applying the purity test, the Sheboygan County GOP last fall refused to stock yard signs for an incumbent Republican legislator. Rep. Amy Binsfeld lost by 845 votes. For not adhering to its “ultra-conservative world view,” the Barron County party pulled the membership of State Sen. Romaine Quinn. After the state revoked the county party’s charter, two rival Republican parties vied in that northern county. (Details here.)

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Believing they can purge their way to victory, Cultists would rather lose with the My Pillow Man than elect a moderate Republican. The reality is that Donald Trump’s hold on Wisconsin voters is communion wafer thin. He won Wisconsin last year by the narrowest margin of any state. As shown by the defeats of Eric Hovde last November — even as Trump squeaked by in Wisconsin — and Brad Schimel in April (despite Elon Musk’s visit on his behalf), Trump left his coat tails at the tailor.

Do purity tests win elections?