Republican Party (United States)

Republican Party Logo of the Republican Party of the United States of America
Name	Republican Party
Abbreviation	GOP (Grand Old Party)
Founded	1854-03-20
Founders	Alvan Earle Bovay Horace Greeley Edwin Denison Morgan Henry Jarvis Raymond Amos Tuck
Type	Political party
Preceded by	Whig Party (majority) North American Party Anti-Nebraska movement Free Soil Party Liberty Party
Location	United States
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Areas served	United States
Student wing	College Republicans
Youth wing	Young Republicans Teen-Age Republicans
Women's wing	National Federation of Republican Women
Overseas wing	Republicans Overseas
Chairperson	Ronna Romney McDaniel
Senate Minority Leader	Mitch McConnell
House Minority Leader	Kevin Owen McCarthy
Known for	Climate change denial U.S. Postal Service (Louis DeJoy) Voter suppression  (gerrymandering; ...) Numerous other erosions of democracy
Controversies	Presidency of Donald Trump
Membership	2021: 36,132,743
Ideology	Alt-right Christian right Centrism Conservatism Conspiracy theories Far-right politics Homophobia Islamophobia Paleoconservatism Right-wing politics Right-wing Populism Libertarianism Neoconservatism Neofascism Neoliberalism Transphobia White supremacy Xenophobia
Website	GOP.com

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Background

The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP ("Grand Old Party"), is one of the two major, contemporary political parties in the United States, along with its main historic rival, the Democratic Party.

The Grand Old Party (GOP) was founded in 1854 by opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed for the potential expansion of chattel slavery into the western territories [Western United States]. The GOP was simultaneously strengthened by the collapse of the Whig Party, which had previously been one of the two major parties in the United States. Upon founding, the Republican Party supported economic reform and classical liberalism while opposing the expansion of slavery. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president. Under the leadership of Lincoln and a Republican  United States Congress, slavery was banned in the United States in 1865. The GOP was generally dominant during the Third and the Fourth Party System periods. The Republican Party was strongly committed to protectionism and tariffs at its founding, but grew more supportive of free trade in the 20th century.

After 1912, the Republican Party began to undergo an ideological shift to the right. Following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Republican Party's core base shifted, with southern states becoming more reliably Republican in presidential politics. After the Supreme Court of the United States' 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the Republican Party opposed abortion in its party platform and grew its support among evangelicals  [Christian Right]. The Republican Party's 21st-century ideology is American conservatism, which incorporates both social conservatism and fiscal conservatism.

The GOP supports the following ideologies:

In the 21st century, the demographic base of the Republican Party skews toward men, people living in rural areas, members of the Silent Generation, and white Americans - particularly white evangelical Christians. The Republican Party's most recent presidential nominee was Donald Trump, who served as the 45th President of the United States from 2017 to 2021.

There have been 19 Republican presidents, the most from any one political party. As of early 2021, the GOP controls 27 state governorships, 30 state legislatures, and 23 state government trifectas (governorship and both legislative chambers). Six of the nine sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices were nominated by Republican presidents.

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Additional Reading

The GOP is no longer a normal political party with a single governing philosophy: instead, it's become a coalition of interest groups, each seeking its own ends. The backstory here is fascinating and grim. The GOP is no longer a normal political party with a single governing philosophy: instead, it's become a coalition of interest groups, each seeking its own ends. How did we get here, and where will this crisis of political governance lead America?

It all started with the billionaires. Of course, back then they were merely worth hundreds of millions, but in today's dollars they were billionaires even in the 1950s.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote about them in a letter to his rightwing brother Edgar in 1954, the middle of his presidency.

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

What Eisenhower never anticipated, however, was that 5 corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court would rule that billionaires buying off politicians was mere "free speech" rather than political corruption and bribery. Had he lived to see it happen (he died in 1969), he would have been shocked to his core. Today those rightwing extremist billionaires have an outsized influence in the GOP. They're pouring hundreds of millions into this fall's elections, and every Republican politician must bow to them and their low-tax, no-regulation desires to gain or hold political office. Cross them and you're toast in GOP politics.

But billionaires aren't enough to make a political party and win elections so, when the GOP put itself up for sale in 1978 after Lewis Powell wrote the decision in the Bellotti Supreme Court case allowing that, the Republicans around Reagan pulled together a coalition of voters large enough to win elections. They are:

• Southern white racists. This was, for the GOP, low-hanging fruit. A group identified in the 1960s by the Goldwater and Nixon campaigns, Kevin Phillips told The New York Times in 1970 how it would work: "From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

• Homophobes and misogynists. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s this group was actively courted by rightwing hate radio hosts like Limbaugh with his "Hillary Clinton Testicle Lockbox" and "Feminazi" slurs. There are enough men insecure about their own sexuality that hating on women and queer folk became a popular sport, particularly as the women's and gay rights movements gained steam during that era.

• Lower-middle-class working white people. This was the result of genius branding largely promoted by Lee Atwater back in the day. Exploit the brands of NASCAR, the NFL, and Country Music, which were reliably Democratic until the 1980s, causing working-class white people to think the GOP was their home.

• Upper middle class white people. Ironically, this is the group that's been most badly screwed by Republican tax policies, but they vote reliably Republican in any case. While billionaires pay only around 3% income taxes these days because of loopholes they paid Republicans to drill into law, people like surgeons making a few hundred thousand a year often pay 50% or more in taxes. Which, of course, makes them all the more vulnerable to the GOP's tax-cut mantra, even if this group typically only gets a small slice of the cuts.

• Authoritarian followers. This group has blossomed since the Trump campaign of 2016. These are people openly skeptical of democracy, instead wanting a strong father figure to lead them and tell them how to think, act, and vote. They make up the majority of the January 6th traitors (although there's a lot of overlap with the racists), and are ready to follow the next authoritarian leader who replaces Trump (a position for which DeSantis, Hawley, Scott, Cotton, and Cruz are competing).

Because the GOP has no unifying philosophy other than hate, fear, and kowtowing to billionaires and their giant corporations, the politicians who make up its governing class are similarly fractured. Neoliberalism was their uniting philosophy in 1980 and Reagan cemented that system into place with his presidency: it still controls most of the American political and economic system and dictates most modern Supreme Court decisions as well.

But, while they don't generally recognize the word neoliberalism, that system which includes offshoring jobs, massive tax cuts for the rich ("trickle-down"), privatization of government functions, and gutting the social safety net has fallen out of favor among most voters. (See: The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America.)

This has left the GOP rudderless. Their persistent shout-outs to racists and homophobes - including efforts to ban books and the teaching of American History - have helped Republican politicians win primary elections, but have hurt Republicans electorally with their better-educated and higher income voters.

Similarly, their embrace of Catholic anti-abortion doctrine has pushed away many formerly Republican female voters while failing to further energize or increase the numbers of the fringe that holds this issue with fanatic zeal.

As a result, other than Senator Rick Scott's proposals for ending Social Security and Medicare within 5 years and more calls for tax cuts, Republican politicians in state and federal office have been reduced to simply opposing everything Democrats do or want to do.

Republicans are now so devoted to reflexively opposing anything Democrats embrace that they literally led hundreds of thousands of their own followers to their deaths by ridiculing masks and vaccines during the worst pandemic in more than a century.

This lack of a clear ideological foundation across the GOP has opened the door to:

• Predatory grifters (Mehmet Oz, Matt Gaetz, Rick Scott),

• Wannabee stars and fame-seekers (Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Ted Cruz), and

• Putin-style autocrats (Blake Masters, Doug Mastriano, Ron DeSantis).

Donald Trump, filling all three categories simultaneously, predictably became the "King of the Thieves" in the GOP: those who aspire to replace him are discovering it's a damn hard act to follow, making Republican voters even more vulnerable to each of those three GOP factions.

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U.S. President Joe Biden warned Thursday night (2022-09-01) that "equality and democracy are under assault" in the United States, as Biden sounded an alarm about his predecessor, Donald Trump, and "MAGA   Republicans" adherents - labelling those who support Donald Trump's Make America Great Again agenda an extremist threat to the United States and its future.

Aiming to reframe the 2022-11 U.S. midterm elections as part of a battle for the nation's soul - "the work of my presidency" - Joe Biden used a prime-time speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to argue that Donald Trump and MAGA allies are a challenge to United States' system of government, its standing abroad and its citizens' way of life. "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic," Biden declared. He said they "promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence."

The explicit effort by Joe Biden to marginalize Donald Trump and his adherents marks a sharp turn for the president, who preached his desire to bring about national unity in his inaugural address. White House officials said it reflects Joe Biden's mounting concern about Donald Trump's allies' ideological proposals and relentless denial of the nation's 2020 election results  [Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election]. "MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards," Joe Biden said. "Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love." "For a long time, we've reassured ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it is not," Joe Biden said. "We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us."

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• [CommonDreams.org, 2022-09-01] Biden to Confront 'Big Lie' Extremism of GOP as Analysis Highlights Its Corporate Funders.  After Thursday (2022-09-01)'s primetime speech, said one watchdog, "Biden can and should take concrete action to protect our democracy."

• [NPR.org, 2022-09-01] Biden attacks Trump, saying his wing of the Republican party is a threat to democracy.

• [CommonDreams.org, 2022-09-01] WATCH: Biden Speaks on MAGA Republicans Posing 'Extremist Threat to Our Democracy'.  The White House press secretary said that the president believes "MAGA Republicans are the most energized part" of the party and "they are pursuing an agenda that takes away people's rights."

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• [CommonDreams.org, 2022-09-04] Donald Trump Calls Biden 'Enemy of the State' in 'Fully Unhinged' Speech .  "This is, quite simply, a speech intended to incite domestic terrorists to kill FBI agents and members of the Biden administration," said one attorney. "What Trump did by calling Biden an 'enemy of the state' to his poorly educated crowd is literally threatening the president."

Former President Donald Trump was accused of inciting domestic terrorism following a rally speech Saturday (2022-09-03) in which Trump called President Joe Biden an "enemy of the state" while threatening a "backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen" in response to the federal investigation into Donald Trump's possession of classified documents .

Making his first public appearance since the 2022-08-08 FBI raid on his Florida resort home, Donald Trump addressed supporters at a "Save America" rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where Donald Trump stumped for Republican gubernatorial candidate and "Big Lie" supporter Doug Mastriano and U.S. Senate hopeful and celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz. During his speech, Trump called Biden's Thursday evening (2022-09-01) address to the nation the "most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by a president."

During his speech  [Battle for the Soul of the Nation speech, 2022-09-01], Joe Biden said that "Donald Trump and the MAGA   Republicans represent extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic." Repeating his "Big Lie" that Democrats stole the 2020 United States presidential election from him, Trump accused Biden of "vilifying 75 million citizens, plus another probably 75 to 150 [million] - if we want to be accurate about it - as threats to democracy and as enemies of the state."

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A Donald Trump supporter flies a Trump flat a trucker convoy protest against COVID-19 restrictions in Toronto.  [Source]

The Republican Party on Friday [2022-02-04] officially declared the 2021-01-06 attack on the Capitol  [2021 United States Capitol attack] and events that led to it "legitimate political discourse," and rebuked two lawmakers in the party who have been most outspoken in condemning the deadly riot and the role of Donald J. Trump in spreading the election lies that fueled it.

The Republican National Committee's voice vote to censure Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois at its winter meeting in Salt Lake City culminated more than a year of vacillation, which started with party leaders condemning the Capitol attack and Donald Trump's conduct, then shifted to downplaying and denying it.

On Friday [2022-02-04], the Republican Party went further in a resolution slamming Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for taking part in the House investigation of the assault, saying they were participating in "persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."

After the vote, party leaders rushed to clarify that language, saying it was never meant to apply to rioters who violently stormed the Capitol in Donald Trump's name. ... But the censure - which was carefully negotiated in private among Republican Party members - made no such distinction, nor is the House committee investigating the attack examining any normal political debate. It was the latest and most forceful effort by the Republican Party to minimize what happened on 2021-01-06, and the broader attempt by Donald Trump and his allies to invalidate the results of the 2020 election [Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election]. In approving it and opting to punish two of its own, Republicans seemed to embrace a position that many of them have only hinted at: that the assault and the actions that preceded it were acceptable.

It came days after Donald Trump suggested that, if re-elected in 2024, he would consider pardons for those convicted in the 2021-01-06 attack and for the first time described his goal that day as subverting the 2020 election results, saying in a statement that then Vice President Mike Pence "could have overturned the election."

On Friday [2022-02-04], Mike Pence pushed back on Donald Trump, calling his assertion "wrong." "I had no right to overturn the election," Mr. Pence told the Federalist Society  [Federalist Society], a conservative legal organization, at a gathering in Florida.

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Most House Republicans tried to ignore the actions of the Republican Party on Friday [2022-02-04], refusing to answer questions or saying they had not read the censure resolution. Representative Dan Crenshaw, Republican of Texas, called it "dumb stuff," while Representative Mark Green, Republican of Tennessee, lamented the distraction from "this abysmal administration's record."

Democrats, however, were incensed at the resolution's language. "The Republican Party is so off the deep end now that they are describing an attempted coup and a deadly insurrection as political expression," said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the special House committee investigating the Capitol attack. "It is a scandal that historians will be aghast at, to think that a major political party would be denouncing Liz Cheney for standing up for the Constitution and not saying anything about Donald Trump's involvement in the insurrection."

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[2022, David Corn] American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy.  #1 The New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter David Corn tells the wild and harrowing story of the Republican Party's decades-long relationship with far-right extremism, bigotry, and paranoia.

A fast-paced, rollicking, behind-the-scenes account of how the GOP since the 1950s has encouraged and exploited extremism, bigotry, and paranoia to gain power, American Psychosis offers readers a brisk, can-you-believe-it journey through the netherworld of far-right irrationality and the Republican Party's interactions with the darkest forces in America. In a compelling and thoroughly-researched narrative, David Corn reveals the hidden history of how the Party of Lincoln forged alliances with extremists, kooks, racists, and conspiracy-mongers and fostered fear, anger, and resentment to win elections - and how this led to Donald Trump's triumph and the transformation of the GOP into a Trump personality cult that foments and bolsters the crazy and dangerous excesses of the right.

The Trump-incited insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol  [United States Capitol] on 2021-01-06  [January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack], was no aberration. American Psychosis shows it was a continuation of the long and deep-rooted Republican practice of boosting and weaponizing the rage and derangement of the right.

The gripping tale in American Psychosis covers the last seven decades. From McCarthyism to the John Birch Society to segregationists to the New Right to the religious right   [Christian right] to Rush Limbaugh to Newt Gingrich to the American militia movement to Fox News to Sarah Palin to the Tea Party to Trumpism, the Republican Party has deliberately nurtured and exploited rightwing fear and loathing fueled by paranoia, grievance, and tribalism. This powerful and important account explains how one political party has harnessed the worst elements in politics to poison the nation's discourse and threaten American democracy.

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Some 161 years after Abraham Lincoln's  ominous pre-Civil War address at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, President Joe Biden will deliver a speech of his own at Independence Hall on Thursday (2022-09-01), and will reportedly speak to the rage and violence that has been loosed upon the United States in the roiled wake of Donald Trump. "The White House said Joe Biden would 'talk about the progress we have made as a nation to protect our democracy, but how our rights and freedoms are still under attack. And he will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms, and fighting for our democracy,'" reports   The Guardian.

Some days ago (2022-08) - in a similarly themed speech - President Joe Biden referred to hyper-aggressive Trump supporters as "semi-fascists," and the subsequent pearl-clutching threatened to set records. "The fact that the president would go out and just insult half of America [and] effectively call half of America semi-fascist, he's trying to stir up controversy," huffed Chris Sununu, New Hampshire's GOP governor. "He's trying to stir up this anti-Republican sentiment right before the election [2022 United States elections]. It's horribly inappropriate."

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In recent months, Republican lawmakers in Texas and Florida have rallied behind a suite of efforts related to schools, children, issues of race, issues of sexuality, and issues of gender identity. At a glance, each represents an isolated case study in conservatism's wider cultural offensive. Taken together, however, all tell a much larger story about the Right's professed commitment to personal freedom and freedom of expression - and the inconsistency with which its partisans apply their own chosen idioms.

The past decade has seen conservatives aggressively rally around a narrative about censorious college professors and an intellectually stifled culture increasingly averse to ideas some find uncomfortable. More broadly, the Right has tended to present itself as the only reliable steward of free speech in a society which now deems certain questions out of bounds and has seen the ongoing creep of a state empowered to suppress individual expression. However you come down on what are sometimes complex debates about education or pedagogy, it's a story that's simply impossible to square with the kinds of moves Republican politicians are now willing to entertain, let alone what many are already using political power to do.

Recent developments in two states are especially instructive in this respect.

Last month [2022-01], Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick (R-TX) signaled he'll push to end tenure for new hires at the state's public universities and colleges in a move to combat "indoctrination" and the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) - also opening the door to reforming local laws so that those who currently have tenure can have it revoked if authorities decide they've engaged in wrongthink.

In Florida, which has also become a CRT battleground, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives just approved a measure to prohibit discussions concerned with gender identity and sexual orientation in classrooms. Though the bill's language refers specifically to children in a specific age range, its many critics rightly point out an obvious loophole that could potentially make its implications even more expansive - the text referring to "classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity ... in kindergarten through grade 3" with the caveat "or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards." Also empowering parents to sue districts perceived to have violated the new rules, the bill is transparently a first step toward what some conservatives clearly hope will be the eventual purging of some discussions from public schools altogether.

Given the Right's espoused commitment to freedom of speech and opposition to state overreach, you might think this would be a difficult circle to square. In relation to both CRT and discussions of sexual identity, however, the favored frame has become the idea of "parental choice": a rhetorically useful way of packaging the agenda of social conservatism in the language of individual freedom and moral neutrality. One only needs to return to Texas to see just how hollow and selective the Right's application of this very concept actually is.

In what is easily the most grotesque of all the various efforts Republicans are currently pushing at the state level, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) last month [2022-01] asked the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to launch investigations into instances of what he calls "abusive procedures" related to parents, children, and gender identity. Effectively, it means that the parents of transgender children can now be criminally investigated for affirming their child's identity - and that a range of licensed professionals from doctors to teachers will be required to snitch on those who do. Less than a week on from Abbott's decree, two Texan parents - one of whom is a DFPS employee - are already being investigated (and are rightly suing).

Republican lawmakers, in short, will embrace the concept of parental autonomy in one instance and abandon it in the next. Freedom of speech is said to be under attack, but teachers and college faculty must face professional discipline if they transgress against the standards handed down by politicians. The state and its organs, it is said, should remain neutral on particular questions, but are also morally obligated to criminalize and punish certain lifestyles and viewpoints.

In one obvious sense, there's no internal consistency here - the operating principle being "free expression for me but not for thee". Then again, this apparent lack of consistency may offer us a deeper clue about what's really animating the Right's wider cultural offensive. Parse the language and aims of these various efforts, and it's clear that their inspiration is nothing more nor less than a socially conservative idea of society in which individuals have prescribed roles and identities and the function of public institutions is to help bolster this natural order. Look at various   polls on a range of issues, and it's very difficult to make a convincing case that anything resembling such a worldview is shared by a majority of Americans - which is probably one reason conservatives have tended to package their objectives in the bogus rhetoric of neutrality and choice.

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After 147 Republican lawmakers voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election   [Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election], major corporations like Amazon.com and Google pledged to stop donating to election objectors or stop political giving altogether. New reporting from Politico finds that many of these companies technically kept their promises - because they dispatched their lobbyists to make donations for them instead.

Lobbyists for Amazon.com,  Microsoft,  Google,  Meta Platforms (formerly known as Facebook),  Allstate,  Toyota,  Nike,  Dow Chemical Company, and more publicly announced that they would stop donating to election objectors or that they would review their donation policies after some Republican lawmakers voted not to certify the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, following months of former President Donald Trump's baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him  [Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election]. But since corporations benefit greatly from giving to politicians who in turn back policies like keeping corporate taxes low, they used their lobbyists to get around these pledges; individual lobbyists can make personal donations on behalf of companies without being officially affiliated with the companies in campaign filings.

Overall, staff from at least 13 companies with donation pledges gave to election objectors in 2021, Politico found, totalling over $28,000. Some of the Republicans who received those donations are set to take on leadership positions if the Republican Party takes back the United States House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections  [2022 United States elections], meaning that the donations could end up playing a role in shaping legislation that will be considered in the United States Congress over the next few years. According to Politico's analysis, lobbyists for Microsoft gave the most among major tech companies; corporate vice president of U.S. government affairs Fred Humphries  [local copy] gave $2,500 to House Minority Leader   Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and $1,000 to Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH). Microsoft Congressional Affairs director Allison Halataei  [local copy], meanwhile, gave $1,000 to Representative Chris Stewart (R-UT).

In spite of those donations - or perhaps because those corporations thought the donations would ultimately fly under the radar - Microsoft reiterated its pledge to stop all political donations in 2022. Overall, lobbyists for tech companies gave over $16,000 in donations to 11 different Republicans, Politico found, even as they stuck by their pledges in the public eye. "It clearly is a workaround," government ethics expert for Public Citizen   Craig Holman  [local copy] told Politico. "If a company is serious about not giving a campaign contribution to insurrectionists, then they can't allow people who are in senior executive positions who represent the company to make those same contributions. And that would include the CEO as well as the lobbyists of the company."

While it appears that some companies are trying to conceal donations to election objectors, many others broke their pledges outright last year. Companies including General Motors,  Lockheed Martin, the United Parcel Service (UPS,  Duke Energy,  and more broke their pledges and gave thousands of dollars to objectors. Some of these broken pledges are especially egregious - Toyota, for instance, gave $55,000 in the first seven months of 2021 alone.

Popular Information   has reported that company pledges against political donations have been largely successful - corporate political action committee (PAC) donations to election objectors are down about 60 percent in comparison to the last election cycle [2020]. However, many companies may have simply shifted their donations onto lobbyists, meaning that it's difficult to know exactly how these pledges have changed the donation landscape - and it's possible that they've even pushed an already opaque election finance system even further into the dark [see also: dark money].

On Monday [2022-01-24], Popular Information    published a report on corporations that donated to the Republicans who imposed a draconian abortion ban in Texas. The report detailed contributions to Texas Republicans from a variety of major corporations, including AT&T,   Walmart Inc., and Ford Motor Company. But what caught the attention of social media users was the $15,000 contribution from PepsiCo, Inc.Republican Party of Texas.

Need ANOTHER reason to stop drinking Pepsi   @PepsiCo sent a big fat check to the GOP legislators who got the TEXAS ABORTION BILL passed.

-- E. Jean Carroll | @ejeancarroll | 2022-01-24

The PepsiCo contribution was first disclosed in a filing by the Republican Party of Texas last week [2022-01]. The Republican Party of Texas reported receiving the contribution on 2021-08-05. For several hours on Monday night [2022-01-24], #BoycottPepsi was the #1 trending topic on Twitter in the United States. Soon the calls for a boycott of PepsiCo - and Popular Information's reporting on PepsiCo's donation - were featured in national media outlets, including USA Today and Newsweek.

The online controversy was also covered by numerous television affiliates in Texas.

" #BoycottPepsi" is gaining online traction after a progressive newsletter "Popular Information" reported PepsiCo and other companies donated to politicians and politician committees that played a role in enacting Texas' controversial abortion law.

-- KSAN News  [KSAN-TV] | @ksannews | 2022-01-25

Popular Information contacted PepsiCo before publication last week [2022-01] and received no response. But, after the story went viral online Tuesday morning [2022-01-25], PepsiCo contacted Popular Information and claimed that the check to the Texas Republican Party had actually been issued in the summer of 2020.

During presidential election years, PepsiCo has typically made donations supporting both the Democratic and Republican conventions in several states. In the summer of 2020, we donated to both the Democratic and Republican parties in Texas to support those state conventions. The check to the Republican party was not processed until August 2021. As a result, the donation was recorded then and disclosed in a recent filing.

The problem with this explanation, however, is that corporate checks generally expire within 180 days. PepsiCo told Popular Information that it had reissued the check to the Texas Republican Party sometime in 2021, but declined to specify the date. So PepsiCo is trying to leave the impression that the check was issued prior to the passage of Texas' abortion ban, while declining to actually specify the date the check was issued. Further, at any time before 2021-08-05, PepsiCo could have canceled the check to the Texas Republican Party - it chose not to. Since PepsiCo placed an emphasis on the timing of the donation, Popular Information asked whether PepsiCo would donate to the Texas Republican Party in the future - PepsiCo declined to comment. One thing is for certain, however. The next time PepsiCo makes a political donation it will know that Popular Information - and the world - is watching.

On 2021-05-19, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) signed legislation banning virtually all abortions in Texas and creating a system of vigilante justice to enforce the abortion ban. The new law, which went into effect on 2021-09-01, bans all abortions after four to six weeks of pregnancy - before many women even know they are pregnant. The abortion ban is enforced by private citizens who can sue people who help women obtain an abortion and collect a bounty of $10,000 or more.

The U.S. Supreme Court, while not issuing a final ruling on the Texas law, has allowed it to remain in effect. As a result, some women with unwanted pregnancies are being "forced to carry pregnancies to term." Others with resources are traveling long distances - and spending hundreds or thousands of dollars - to obtain an abortion in neighboring states. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the average distance a woman in Texas must travel to obtain an abortion has increased from 17 to 247 miles each way. Those forced to make the trek have included "rape victims" since the abortion law does not include exemptions for rape or incest.

Wait times for clinics in neighboring states have increased dramatically and now commonly exceed two weeks. Abortion providers "as far away as New York, Washington, Michigan, Georgia, and Florida" have reported seeing women traveling from Texas. A quarter of the patients in Mississippi's sole clinic are from Texas. The limited options for Texas women could be further foreclosed as anti-abortion legislators seek to impose copycat laws in other states. Bills mimicking Texas' anti-abortion approach have already been introduced in Arkansas, Arizona, Missouri, Alabama, Ohio, South Dakota, and Florida.

In 2021-09, Popular Information   revealed the top corporate donors to the sponsors of Texas' abortion ban. At the time, comprehensive campaign finance data was only available through 2021-06-30. That means nearly all of these donations occurred before the ban was signed into law. This gave corporations plausible deniability about the impact of their donations. Yes, they had given money to the sponsors of Texas' abortion ban. But now that they knew what these politicians had done, they may not donate to them in the future. For example, in 2021-09, Popular Information reported that CVS Health donated $72,500 to the sponsors of Texas' abortion bill since 2018. In a statement, CVS Health said that "past political contributions are by no means ... an indication of where we'll direct our future support."

Last week [2022-01], however, the Texas Ethics Commission posted filings covering the period from 2021-07-01 to 2021-12-31. All of these donations were made after Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the anti-abortion heartbeat bill into law. A Popular Information analysis reveals that numerous corporations - including several corporations that publicly profess a commitment to women's rights - donated to the politicians and political committees that played a central role in enacting Texas' abortion ban.

AT&T donated $80,000 to key proponents of Texas' abortion ban

In AT&T's 2020 Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Report, CEO John Stankey said one of AT&T's "core values" was "gender equity and the empowerment of women." On 2021-08-26 AT&T celebrated "Women's Equality Day," saying it was "a day to reflect on the many challenges women in our society still face to achieve equity." AT&T said that it believed "empowered women are key to the success of their communities."

AT&T donated $50,000 directly from its corporate treasury to the Texas Senate Republican Caucus. All 18 Republican members of the Texas Senate voted in favor of Texas' abortion ban. If just four had opposed, the bill would not have become law. But AT&T is donating substantial funds to ensure that Republicans maintain or expand their control of the Texas Senate.

AT&T is the single largest donor in the period to the Texas Senate Republican Caucus. (The next highest donation, by PhARMA  [Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America], was $20,000.) AT&T represented almost one-third of the Texas Senate Republican Caucus' total fundraising for the period. On 2021-12-14, AT&T's political action committee (PAC) donated $30,000 to Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Dade Phelan (R-TX), who marshaled Texas' abortion ban through the House.

[Heartbeat Bill PASSED  (Texas Heartbeat Act of 2021)] Texas is pro-life! I am proud to have passed SB 8, the Texas Heartbeat Act, to ban all abortions the moment a baby's heartbeat is detected. Until abortion is outlawed across the board, we must continue to fight for the unborn and their right to life however we can.

-- Dade Phelan  |  @DadePhelan  |  2021-06-19

The head of AT&T's legislative strategy is Ed Gillespie  [Wikipedia: Ed Gillespie], the former chair of the Republican National Committee. When Ed Gillespie ran for Governor of Virginia in 2017 Gillespie said that he "would like to see abortion be banned."

In response to a request for comment, an AT&T spokesperson sent the following statement:

AT&T has never taken a position on abortion and the Texas legislation was no exception. AT&T did not endorse nor support passage of Texas Senate Bill 8 in the Texas legislature [Texas Heartbeat Act of 2021]. AT&T's employee political action committees have never based contribution decisions on a legislator's positions on the issue of abortion, and employee political action committee (PAC) contributions to Texas legislators went to both opponents and supporters of Texas Senate Bill 8. Our employee PACs contribute to policymakers in both major parties and will not agree with recipients on every issue.

The AT&T spokesperson also noted that, under Texas law, the $50,000 donation from AT&T's corporate treasury to the Texas Senate Republican Caucus "is strictly limited to being used to help defray administrative and overhead costs of the organization and may not be used for political purposes."

PepsiCo donates $15,000 to the Texas GOP

PepsiCo, Inc. publicly touts its commitment to "empowering women in the workplace, marketplace and community."

We're striving to create a more diverse and inclusive world for our people, in our business partnerships + within our communities. This includes our commitment to empowering women within the workplace + in the world. Take a look at some of our progress.

-- PepsiCo  |  @PepsiCo  |  2021-03-01

One thing you won't hear about on PepsiCo's Twitter feed is its $15,000 donation to the Texas GOP on 2021-08-05.

One of the top legislative priorities of the @TexasGOP is abolishing abortion. @RyanTAnd  [Wikipedia: Ryan T. Anderson, American political philosopher who is best known for his opposition to same-sex marriage. Ryan Anderson is currently president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Anderson was previously the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation ...] explains how the U.S. Supreme Court could do just that with a case from Mississippi.

[Yahoo News, 2021-08-03] Roe v. Wade was a lousy decision. The Supreme Court should take the opportunity to overturn it.

-- Texas GOP  |  @TexasGOP  |  2021-08-13

The money donated by PepsiCo will support the reelection of all the politicians responsible for the Texas anti-abortion law, including Republicans in the state legislature, Governor Greg Abbott, and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R-TX). After this article was originally published, PepsiCo sent Popular Information the following statement:

During presidential election years, PepsiCo has typically made donations supporting both the Democratic and Republican conventions in several states. In the summer of 2020, we donated to both the Democratic and Republican parties in Texas to support those state conventions. The check to the Republican party was not processed until 2021-08. As a result, the donation was recorded then and disclosed in a recent filing.

Walmart donates $10,000 to Texas Republicans responsible for abortion ban

Walmart Inc. touts its "efforts to advance women associates and empower women." Walmart says it is "committed to providing opportunities for women inside and outside of Walmart to grow and achieve their goals while creating a more inclusive and innovative workplace, resilient supply chain and thriving communities."

On Twitter, Walmart declared that "empowering women creates shared value: it's good for society, and it's good for business."

We're proud to be among the 230 companies selected to the @Bloomberg 2019 Gender-Equality Index! Empowering women creates shared value: it's good for society, and it's good for business. https://bloom.bg/2Co5dL9  |  2019-01-16

But after Texas imposed a law stripping reproductive rights from millions of Texas women, including tens of thousands of Walmart associates in Texas, Walmart did not speak out against it. Instead, in 2021-12 Walmart donated $5,000 to Dade Phelan and $5,000 to Dan Patrick, who also serves as president of the Texas Senate. Walmart did not respond to Popular Information's request for comment.

Other major corporate donations to Texas Republicans after the enactment of abortion ban

The latest filings with the Texas Ethics Commission also revealed several other major corporate donations to Texas Republicans after the abortion ban was enacted in 2021-05:

• Ford Motor Company donated $5,000 to Dade Phelan on 2021-12-05.

• Ford Motor Company donated $5,000 to Dade Phelan on 2021-12-05.

• Zillow Group, Inc. donated $5,000 to the Texas Senate Republican Caucus on 2021-12-28.

• The Allstate Corporation donated $3,000 to Dade Phelan on 2021-10-20.

• Exelon Corporation donated $10,000 to Dade Phelan on 2021-10-27, and $10,000 to the Texas House Republican Caucus on 2021-11-30.

• Koch Industries donated $10,000 to Dade Phelan on 2021-12-05, and $5,000 to Dan Patrick on 2021-12-09.

• United Services Automobile Association donated $20,000 to Dan Patrick on 2021-10-10, and $2,500 to the Texas House Republican Caucus on 2021-12-31.

• UnitedHealth Group Incorporated donated $5,000 to the Texas House Republican Caucus on 2021-11-30.

• United Parcel Service donate $7,500 to the Texas House Republican Caucus on 2021-12-31.

Several dozen other companies - including Netflix, Inc.,   Yelp, Inc., and Lyft, Inc. - have signed a statement opposing Texas' abortion ban. "Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion, threatens the health, independence, and economic stability of our workers and customers," the companies said.

• UPDATE (1/25): This article has been updated with a statement from PepsiCo: [Popular.info, 2022-01-26] Update: Facing boycott calls, Pepsi defends donation to Texas Republican Party.

Glenn Youngkin, the first Republican governor of Virginia since 2014, is wasting no time enacting policies that will harm the state's people of color. On Saturday [2022-01-15] - Youngkin's first day in office - Youngkin signed 11 executive actions that, among other things, will make it harder for schools to teach kids about racism. The orders also scrap rules that slowed the spread of the coronavirus amid a pandemic [COVID-19 pandemic] that Virginia's health department says has hit Black and Brown families the hardest.

"The spirit of Virginia is alive and well," Youngkin said in his inaugural address. "And together we will strengthen it. Together we'll renew the promise of Virginia, so it will be the best place to live, work and raise a family."

Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer and former private equity executive, was endorsed by Donald Trump. Youngkin's victory over Democrat   Terry McAuliffe was one of the most closely watched elections since President Joe Biden took office, giving more power to Republicans in a swing state that, over the past two decades, has increasingly leaned Democratic.

Youngkin just signed executive order telling parents statewide they have a right to say whether or not their children wear a mask in school.
pic.twitter.com/ReBUrEPikq

-- Nick Iannelli  [LinkedIn: local copy] (@NickWTOP) 2022-01-15

Here's a sampling of Glenn Youngkin's day one executive actions:

• Race in schools: To be clear, under the previous governor, Virginia schoolkids were not learning critical race theory, an academic theory developed in colleges and graduate schools that explores how systemic racism broadly infects U.S. society. But that didn't stop Glenn Youngkin from whipping up fear around critical race theory to mobilize the GOP base. On Saturday [2022-01-15], Youngkin ordered state education officials to review and end any education policies, practices, or materials that endorse "inherently divisive concepts, including critical race theory." Youngkin said "political indoctrination has no place in our classrooms."

• Masks in schools: Glenn Youngkin rescinded a statewide mask mandate for public school students, giving parents the power to send their kids to class without face coverings even as coronavirus cases skyrocket because of the coronavirus omicron variant  [SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant]. Youngkin said he was "reaffirming the rights of parents in the upbringing, education, and care of their children."

• Incarceration: Glenn Youngkin fired the Virginia Parole Board's members and hired new ones. The new appointees include a former police officer who was shot in 1984 while working off duty, and recently led an effort to block the shooter from leaving prison on parole.

• Vaccines: Glenn Youngkin rescinded a rule requiring state employees to get a coronavirus vaccine  [COVID-19 vaccine] or submit to weekly testing.

One of Glenn Youngkin's other executive actions directs the state's attorney general to investigate Loudoun County, Virginia's public schools, after a 14-year-old student committed two sexual assaults. Because the student is nonbinary and committed an assault in a school bathroom, the case generated national attention and backlash  [transphobia  |  Discrediting the Transphobic "Bathroom Predator" Myth] against the school district's policy of allowing transgender kids to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity. The teenager has already been placed on the sex offender registry for life.

Other Youngkin executive actions set up a commission to prevent human trafficking, established a committee to fight antisemitism, and took steps to withdraw Virginia from a regional climate initiative  [climate change denial] that aimed at reducing power plant emissions.

At least in certain corners of the state, Glenn Youngkin is already facing pushback: On Saturday [2022-01-15] , the superintendent of Richmond, Virginia schools announced that he would keep the mask requirement in place for students, staffers, and visitors. Other school districts will too.

This may be the end of political debates as we have known them. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has informed the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) - which has hosted presidential and vice presidential debates for general elections for over three decades - that it will change its rules to prohibit the party's nominees from participating in CPD debates. The letter outlined many objections - and suggestions - and accuses the CPD of stonewalling the RNC's requested changes to the process and of being biased. "The RNC has shared our concerns with the CPD in good faith, carefully documenting why the party and its voters have lost faith in your organization, and we have proposed commonsense reforms that would restore trust in the debates process," wrote RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. "Unfortunately, neither the tone nor substance of your latest response inspires confidence that the CPD will meaningfully address the serious issues which the RNC has raised."

The CPD provided the following statement in response

"The CPD deals directly with candidates for President and Vice President who qualify for participation in CPD's general election debates. The CPD's plans for 2024 [2024 United States presidential election] will be based on fairness, neutrality and a firm commitment to help the American public learn about the candidates and the issues."

Some of the RNC's complaints listed in its letter include holding the first debate after early voting had began; accusing the commission of "making unilateral changes to previously agreed-upon debate formats and conditions, in some cases without even notifying the candidates; selecting a moderator who had once worked for the Democrat nominee, a glaring conflict of interest; and failing to maintain the organization's strict nonpartisanship, with a majority of its Board Members publicly disparaging the Republican nominee." The CPD's chairman, Frank Fahrenkopf  [Wikipedia: Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., served as Republican Party chairman in the 1980s.

Former President Donald Trump spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep on Tuesday [2022-01-11] in a brief phone interview. They discussed vaccinations for COVID-19, the 2020 United States presidential election and the outlook for Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections [2022 United States elections]. The conversation was cut short when Trump hung up the phone while being questioned about his continued lies about the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump repeatedly attempted to assert misinformation about his election loss, as well as about the necessity of vaccinations [COVID-19 vaccine].

In addition to the context provided in the course of the interview, you can read more fact-checking and analysis of the conversation here  [local copy].

Yesterday [2022-01-06] marked one year since pro-Trump fanatics stormed the U.S. Capitol [2021 United States Capitol attack, 2021-01-06] under the belief that they could halt the counting of electoral votes and install the loser of an election as president. Democrats marked the occasion by remembering the breaching of the United States Capitol as an attack on democracy (featuring a bizarre musical interlude from the cast of Hamilton); Republicans were less eager to do so. During the official congressional ceremony, only two Republicans chose to attend. One was Liz Cheney, currently a U.S. representative for Wyoming; the other was Liz Cheney's father, Dick Cheney (as a former member of United States Congress, Dick Cheney has congressional   floor privileges). Numerous Democrats reportedly walked over to Dick Cheney to shake his hand.

I find it difficult to put into words how shameful venerating Dick Cheney like this is by anyone, much less the country's supposed left-wing politics party - and it's particularly jarring given that Dick Cheney has dedicated his career to attacking democracy, the very thing the ceremony was supposedly in opposition to.

It's necessary to remember a bit of history here. Dick Cheney was the most powerful vice president in U.S. history. Dick Cheney is most remembered for his role in promoting the Iraq War, an illegal war of aggression predicated on lies, as well as pushing the nation to the "dark side" after <9/11/ne>  [September 11 attacks, 2001-09-11], which included torture, detention without trial (including of U.S. citizens), warrantless surveillance, and other egregious departures from liberal norms of democracy.

All this was predicated on a shocking legal theory that gave the president sweeping wartime powers that neither Congress nor the courts could check. As they were fighting a global war with no borders, this meant that not even U.S. citizens in the United States were safe from the wartime president's rampages. This was illustrated by the case of José Padilla [Wikipedia entry: José Padilla], who was arrested at the Chicago airport, declared an enemy combatant by George W. Bush, and held in a military prison for three and half years.

These are not the actions of a "defender of democracy" but of someone who constantly attacked and undermined and disregarded it. And while Dick Cheney's worst abuses came during the "War on Terror," they were the culminations of decades of Dick Cheney's scheming against American democracy. Dick Cheney's long political career has been devoted to skirting and ignoring democratic norms however he sees fit.

Fighting for the Imperial Presidency

[ ... snip ... ]

Following the riot at the U.S. Capitol on 2021-01-06  [2021 United States Capitol attack],  dozens of corporations pledged to stop donating to 147 Republican members of Congress who voted that day to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election  [2020 United States presidential election]. The U.S. Capitol riot was an attack on the foundation of democracy. It was an effort to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College based on the lie that Joe Biden did not win legitimately. The 147 Republicans who objected to the certification of the election validated that lie. The corporations that pledged to withhold their PAC donations from that group were making a statement that they would not support members of Congress who were willing to undermine the democratic process.

Over the last year, the threats to American democracy have intensified. Trump has continued to push his false claims of election fraud as he consolidated his control over the Republican Party. In the days following 2021-01-06, House Minority Leader   Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said Trump " bears responsibility" for the attack on the Capitol. Today, McCarthy claims he was misinformed and Donald Trump acted appropriately. Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) underwent a similar transformation.

Donald Trump is using the influence he maintained after 2021-01-06 to install loyalists at all levels of government - especially those who could help him overturn future election results. For example, Trump has endorsed several candidates for Secretary of State that have promoted Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election.

Of the 147 Republican objectors, only one has publicly expressed regret for their vote on 2021-01-06 over the past year [2021].

During this time, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsey_Graham has comprehensively monitored the FEC filings of corporate PACs and published them in the January 6 corporate accountability index. To date, 79 major Corporations - including Allstate,   Nike, and Walgreens - have kept the commitments they made after 2021-01-06. These companies have not donated directly to Republican objectors or to multi-candidate committees that support Republican objectors, like the National Republican Campaign Committee  [National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC)] and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). Another 26 companies - including Comcast,   Dell, and Google - have not donated to individual Republican objectors but have donated to committees like the NRCC and NRSC. 58 companies - including Eli Lilly,   PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and American Airlines - have directly violated their pledge by donating directly to Republican objectors.

Overall, as yesterday [2022-01-03]'s Popular Information  revealed  [source], corporate PAC donations to GOP objectors were down about 60% in 2021 as compared to 2019. But if corporations were concerned about the state of democracy in 2021-01, they should be more concerned in 2022. The 147 Republican objectors have demonstrated their willingness to use their power to undermine the democratic process.

Popular Information contacted 183 companies and asked if their corporate PACs would suspend donations to the 147 Republican objectors in 2022. There are seven companies that have explicitly pledged to withhold PAC funding to the Republican objectors in 2022:

• Airbnb: Airbnb told Popular Information it would not donate to the Republican objectors in 2022.

• BASF: "BASF is committed to staying with our approach for the remainder of the 2022 election cycle."

• Eversource Energy: "We intend to uphold that pledge."

• Lyft: "Yes, we plan to uphold this pledge."

• Microsoft Corporation: "We are committed to our pledge"

• Dow Inc.: "This suspension will remain in place for a period of one election cycle (two years for House members; up to six years for Senators), which specifically includes contributions to the candidate's reelection committee and their affiliated PACs. Dow is committed to the principles of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power."

• American Express: Last year, American Express told Popular Information that its PAC would never donate to the 147 Republican objectors again.

[ ... snip ... ]

According to media reports, most Corporations have already forgotten about 2021-01-06 [2021 United States Capitol attack], and resumed supporting Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.  The Hill, for example, reported on 2021-12-14 that "companies have steadily ramped up their donations to GOP lawmakers who voted against certifying the 2020 election results, largely ending the giving freeze instituted following the Capitol riot."

The Washington Post   reported on 2021-11-09 that corporations' "widespread support for the GOP represents a realization by companies that they face little risk of a public backlash in much of the country for such contributions." Fortune Magazine Magazine   echoed the notion that corporate money was flowing freely to Republican objectors.

From the outset, corporate lobbyists projected confidence that corporations would resume funding Republican objectors quickly. "D.C. can have a short memory," one lobbyist told   Thw Wall Street Journal in 2021-02. "We'll see how long this lasts." A year later [2022-01-03], corporate lobbyists are pushing the narrative that corporate giving has returned to normal.

Tori Ellington  [local copy], a spokesperson for the Public Affairs Council, a trade group that represents lobbyists and Political Action Committee (PACs),  told The Hill last month [2021-12] that "corporate PAC managers are no longer deciding whether to donate to a lawmaker solely based on their vote to object to the 2020 election results." After all, it's easier to convince a corporation to resume donating to Republican objectors if people believe everyone else is doing it.

The only problem with this narrative is that it is not true. Reporting by The Hill and others relies on anecdotal evidence rather than a comprehensive analysis of the data. A complete review of Federal Election Commission filings in 2021 and 2019 by Popular Information reveals that, since 2021-01-06, corporate PAC contributions to Republican objectors have plummeted by nearly two-thirds.

Hundreds of companies pledged to freeze contributions to the 147 Republican objectors or to all members of United States Congress. [Popular Information has tracked the status of all of those pledges here.] But the actual corporate response to 2021-01-06 was far broader. There are thousands of corporate PACs and, according to a survey, more than 80% froze some or all of their contributions after 2021-01-06.

Popular Information looked at all corporate PAC contributions - from individual corporate PACs and corporate trade association PACs - to Republican objectors in 2021 and compared them to corporate PAC contributions to the same Republican objectors in 2019, the equivalent year in the last campaign cycle. For the purpose of this analysis, we looked at a subset of Republican objectors who were running as incumbents in 2019 and are running for reelection in 2021. So the analysis excludes Republican objectors who were new members in 2021 (and therefore did not have an active campaign for all or most of 2019) and Republican objectors who are retiring in 2022 or running for a different office.

We also excluded Republican Senate objectors to avoid distortions attributable to the six-year Senate term. For example, Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) raised $656,000 from corporate PACs in 2019 and just $22,000 from corporate PACs in 2022. But it is not reasonable to attribute this decline to his vote on 2021-01-06 because Roger Marshall does not run for re-election until 2026 and has not begun fundraising in earnest. That leaves 94 Republican objectors who are running for reelection in 2021 and also ran as incumbents in 2019. These 94 Republican objectors raised $11,052,925 from corporate PACs through 2021-11-30, the most recent data available. The same 94 Republican objectors raised $27,205,290 from corporate PACs through 2019-11-30. So while the media narrative is that corporate PAC contributions to Republican objectors have returned to normal, the reality is that they've dropped by 60%.

[ ... snip ... ]

Twitter has permanently suspended the personal account of Representative   Marjorie Taylor Greene for "repeated violations of our [Twitter's] COVID-19 misinformation policy." In an email to NPR, a spokesperson for the social media company said Twitter "had been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy." On Saturday [2022-01-01], Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted a thread about the public health measures imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, criticizing many of the efforts health officials say were critical in preventing more deaths from the virus and slowing its spread in the U.S. The Georgia   Republican's official government Twitter account is still active, the Twitter confirmed. Twitter accounts with five or more "strikes" face a permanent suspension from the platform, according to Twitter policies.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, in a statement following her Twitter suspension, said Twitter was an "enemy to America and can't handle the truth." "That's fine, I'll show America we don't need them and it's time to defeat our enemies," she said. "Social media platforms can't stop the truth from being spread far and wide. Big Tech can't stop the truth. Communist   Democrats can't stop the truth," Greene added.

Marjorie Taylor Greene was temporarily suspended from Twitter in 2021-01 for violating Twitter's "civic integrity" policy, which Twitter had used to remove thousands of QAnon-related accounts. Greene has endorsed the QAnon  conspiracy theory in the past. In 2021-05 Greene faced criticism from her own Republican Party and beyond after comparing to the treatment of Jews during The Holocaust.

The United States House of Representatives removed Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments in 2021-02. Marjorie Taylor Greene had been condemned for promoting racist, antisemitic and false conspiracy theories and for encouraging violence against Democratic officials before she took office.

Twitter permanently suspended former President Donald Trump from the platform following the 2021-01-06 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol [2021 United States Capitol attack].

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the first-term member of United States Congress from Georgia, styles herself as a warrior for free speech. In recent years, Greene has issued hate-filled tweets, encouraged violence on social media, and promoted QAnon conspiracies. In response, lawmakers quickly stripped Greene of her House of Representatives committee assignments, and Twitter temporarily suspended her account several times.

But on Sunday [2022-01-02], Twitter finally suspended Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal account, @mtgreenee, for good, following what Twitter said were "repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy." In a statement to the New York Times, Twitter added: "We've been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations."

Twitter's action came after Marjorie Taylor Greene published a 19-tweet thread on New Years Day lamenting the status of unvaccinated people as a "subclass" and falsely claiming that "extremely high" numbers of COVID vaccine deaths are being ignored. She concluded the since-deleted thread with a call to arms: "Before COVID, We were free. After COVID, We are no longer free. The question is will the people break free from COVID psychosis before it's too late."

Earlier this year [2021], Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed on Twitter that her CrossFit exercise routine would protect her from COVID-19  [local copy, sourced from Archive.org]. Greene also argued that schools and businesses should not shut down to prevent COVID-19 spread, since cancer kills a comparable number of people. (This is a logically flawed argument for a host of reasons, not the least of which being that unlike COVID-19, cancer is not spread through human contact.)

Twitter's decision does not extend to Marjorie Taylor Greene's Congressional Twitter account, @RepMTG, which is still active. Greene responded to Twitter's suspension on GETTR  [Wikipedia: Gettr], a conservative social media platform run by Jason Miller, a former adviser to Donald Trump's presidential campaigns. "Twitter is an enemy to America and can't handle the truth," Greene wrote. "That's fine, I'll show America we don't need them and it's time to defeat our enemies."

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