Chair Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump move to reorganize the party, with an expected cull of 60 members

Donald Trump’s new leadership team at the Republican National Committee started the process of ousting scores of staffers on Monday night, clearing out its ranks as they prepare to bring the committee under the wing of the Trump 2024 presidential campaign, sources familiar with the matter said.

The RNC is expected to cull about 60 people across the political, data and communications departments. At least five members of the senior staff will be let go and some third-party contracts may also be cancelled. One source familiar with the situation described it as an “absolute bloodbath”.

In ousting large swathes of the RNC, the new chair Michael Whatley and the new co-chair Lara Trump – the former president’s daughter-in-law – moved to reorganize the Republican party’s central committee to fall squarely behind the Trump campaign just days after they were formally elected.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    4 months ago

    Now imagine that only through the whole government. This is why Trump can’t be elected again.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    4 months ago

    Not that this isn’t a terrifying harbinger of things we already knew about what a Trump future might hold

    But it’s also not a real strategic idea. If you’re gonna remake the whole organization under the authority and will of one guy, that guy should be more capable than a drunk toddler

    I eagerly await stage 2 of the cycle where everything goes to shit and Trump starts raving about how the RNC is a useless organization, and throwing under the bus everyone who was loyal to him

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’m more worried about who are behind the curtain manipulating this man child. Because they are some truly evil people.

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, I mostly agree… but at the same time, part of the issue is that in Trump’s situation it’s maybe not necessary to have a political machine in the first place.

        The Republican establishment already tried to kill him politically in the beginning, but in the end if people vote for him, it doesn’t really matter what any DC organization says. No one needs to see a TV commercial to know who he is. No one needs to have a debate organized in order to hear from him. He’s immune to a lot of the survival requirements that would usually take money and organization in order for someone to meet. It’s still useful to have an organization and get stuff done, but not having it doesn’t make it impossible for everyone to vote for him.

        (And, of course, it works the other way too – progressive candidates with a sizable enough how-many-votes advantage can still win elections, even if the media / DNC / all usual advantages are stacked against them, because in the end the votes are what actually matter) (Nevada ratfuckery notwithstanding)

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          4 months ago

          Name recognition gets him about 20% of the vote. He gets another 20% or so from people who don’t like him, but hate Democrats more.

          Getting that last 10% is the trick, and it’s where all the money goes. In 2016, Hillary’s campaign spent $564M and Trump $333M. This doesn’t include outside PACs and such, but note that Trump only won on a technicality that year. In 2020, Biden spent $1,000M and Trump $774M, and Trump lost.

          The GOP does need to collect donations. The 2016 Republican Convention cost $67M. They have $8M in the bank, which isn’t even enough to cover the inflation on the 2016 number. State level Republican parties are outright broke. Oh, and some successful legal challenges to gerrymandering mean they’ll have to back more candidates in races that are actually competitive.

          There’s danger here that Trump will win and be able to establish his dictatorship, but there’s also a possibility of Republicans having complete electoral collapse outside of deep red states and districts.

        • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The thing is… What about all the other political positions? Senate, House, state level, etc. need funds and ads and all that to win. I guess if he wins and declares himself “Supreme Dictator For Life,” maybe it doesn’t matter. Otherwise, state representation has a lot of power. I guess the chuds will vote red down ballot but if RNC becomes as dysfunctional as donnie dumbass, they’re going to lose a lot more elections.

          • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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            4 months ago

            Yeah. Who gets to be a political party isn’t written into the constitution; we’ve had big parties come and go before. It’s been stable for so long that it’s started to seem like part of the fabric, but it’s not.

            If the RNC becomes unable to fund or organize any downballot races at all, so that at the end of it all Trump brings about the collapse of the GOP, then I’d be okay with that.

            Of course, there’s also an option that his seizure and mismanagement of the whole Republican machinery means that they suffer a bloodbath in congress, but he wins the presidency, and then like so many dictators before him he simply declares that congress doesn’t count anymore and he’s not bound by them, with the supreme court majority behind him and his violent supporters ready to kill to back it up. That’s a possibility.

            There could be a nice synergy that we could use the collapse of the GOP to enact something like proportional representation in congress, which would be kind of an easy sell at that point if the left wing is okay with it, because it’s a way for conservatives to hold on to some level of power instead of none.

            But the first possibility is much, much more plausible to me unfortunately

    • Orbituary@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Your Stage 2 is likely by design. If he ruins it, his cronies can form a new RNC, or try and do away with it entirely.

  • Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 months ago

    One thing I didn’t see from the last article is what percentage it makes up. 60 people from my local grocery store is absolute carnage, but 60 people from a larger company like Amazon is barely a drop. Does this one give any clues?

  • graycube@kbin.social
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    4 months ago

    When you are campaigning to establish a dictatorship, you don’t need down ballot candidates to win.

  • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    So ya thought ya might like to go to the show. To feel the warm thrill of confusion. That space cadet glow.

    I got some bad news for you sunshine.
    Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel.
    And they sent us along as a surrogate band.
    We’re gonna find out where you fans really stand.

    Are there any queers in the theatre tonight?
    Get 'em up against the wall (against the wall)
    Now there’s one in the spotlight, he don’t look right to me
    Get him up against the wall (against the…).

    And that one looks Jewish and that one’s a coon
    Who let all this riff-raff into the room?
    There’s one smoking a joint and another with spots.
    If I had my way I’d have all of ya shot

  • tootoughtoremember@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I am not surprised by this. Given his track record of surrounding himself with Yes-men, this will more than likely be a bad thing. With the possible silver lining of all that campaign money being wasted on legal defense fees, might just be enough to hurt his reelection chances.

    But my honest question is, does this not normally happen when a candidate becomes the presumptive nominee?

    • Rickety Thudds@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      The real damage will be done to down-ballot candidates who need party support to mount a serious bid for office.

      • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Seriously, nothing could make me happier than this dysfunctional, demented dick bag taking charge of the RNC. Everything he runs, he sucks dry and runs into the ground. So long as he doesn’t get elected, maybe this is the death knell of the Republican party. Where are my progressive peeps at to break off from the Dems and form a new party and get shot on track?

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      No, I don’t recall the entire leadership of the party changing when the nominee for President is firmed up. Normally, the party committee’s job is not to get any one person elected, it’s to organize the fund raising and spending efforts to give the party the best shot at all the major races, from President to Congress to Governors and State Legislators. Since the President is the biggest job on the ticket, you always expect the party leadership to back their nominee, of course. But I don’t recall changes this major this close to the convention.

      This is likely an attempt to make sure the RNC pays his legal bills, and doesn’t move to abandon him, even if he gets convicted.

    • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The only difference in those purges,they were executed.

      Edit: You know, I do wonder how they will kill off political opposition. It’s pretty much a certainty that we’ll see it as it happens.

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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        4 months ago

        “If, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.”

        -Milton Sanford Mayer

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        They thought he would be easy to control. They didn’t really fully understand the implications of him being a psychopath, and they definitely didn’t fully understand the implications of the mobster tactics and ethos he’s very obviously used over the course of his entire adult life.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    And somewhere in that nexus, the jihad raged through the gaps. I must not allow that, thought Paul.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    4 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Donald Trump’s new leadership team at the Republican National Committee started the process of ousting scores of staffers on Monday night, clearing out its ranks as they prepare to bring the committee under the wing of the Trump 2024 presidential campaign, sources familiar with the matter said.

    In ousting large swathes of the RNC, the new chair Michael Whatley and the new co-chair Lara Trump – the former president’s daughter-in-law – moved to reorganize the Republican party’s central committee to fall squarely behind the Trump campaign just days after they were formally elected.

    “Chairman Whatley is in the process of evaluating the organization and staff to ensure the building is aligned with his vision of how to win in November,” the new RNC chief operating officer Sean Cairncross wrote in emails to the political, data and communications teams that were seen by the Guardian.

    Both Whatley and Lara Trump were endorsed by the former president last month after Trump privately met with McDaniel at his Mar-a-Lago club and in effect suggested that she step down after Super Tuesday on 5 March, when 15 states held Republican primaries or caucuses.

    But the message was clear hours later when Trump sat for a pre-taped interview on Newsmax and remarked that McDaniel had to go.

    McDaniel had come under intense pressure to quit over the RNC’s lackluster fundraising performance, which Trump blamed her for personally.


    The original article contains 621 words, the summary contains 232 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!