LANSING — In case you missed it, the MI GOP continues to make headlines as party infighting and an embrace of extremism tears them apart from the inside out.
MLive’s scathing report on the tensions between state party leadership, county parties and community activists, as well as top-to-bottom failures, proves unequivocally that the party has fallen from their once-respected place in Michigan politics.
Between MAGA Matt Hall and disgraced former Governor Rick Snyder leading the charge fundraising for GOP House extremists and Kristina Karamo using her platform to spout conspiracy after conspiracy, there is no doubt that the Michigan GOP is too focused on their own implosion to pay attention to the needs of Michiganders.
Read more about how broken the Michigan GOP is below:
MLive: Michigan’s GOP is ‘a doggone mess’: inside a party torn by infighting and paranoia
- As infighting has reached a fever-pitch in some parts of the state, Karamo’s state party has found itself navigating increasingly contentious relationships with the same activists that catapulted her to power.
- Local Republican leaders throughout Michigan, however, are preparing for a 2024 election season in which they don’t expect the state party to play much of a role. In past cycles the Michigan Republican Party had spent millions on political advertising and helped to coordinate field operations. As of now, all of it seems out of reach.
- “The most unfortunate thing about this whole summit and other recent distractions surrounding (the Michigan Republican Party) is that a Republican’s chances of winning Michigan in 2024 get diminished each hour of each day that (the state party) plays in the weeds,” the Oakland County Republican Party leaders wrote.
- Things came to a head at a state committee meeting in early July, where a brawl broke out between party members that made national news, after one delegate attempted to enter a closed committee meeting and party officials left the meeting without having their concerns heard.
- Matthew Muir, who sits on the Oakland County party’s executive committee, is not a believer in election conspiracy theories. It’s left him disheartened by what he’s seen from the state party. “It’s become an obsession that consumes and takes over what we should be doing, you know, focusing on issues that matter, focusing on issues that resonate with voters,” Muir said.
- Key people in Karamo’s orbit have carried over from her unsuccessful 2022 campaign for secretary of state. Hartman, the party’s top attorney, crafted Karamo’s failed lawsuit that attempted to halt all absentee voting in Detroit days before the 2022 general election. The judge later fined them $58,459 for filing a “frivolous” case he called “rife with speculation, an absence of facts and a lack of understanding of Michigan election statutes.”
- Karamo has no problem stoking division for politicians she’s ascribes as “Grey Poupon.” She bristled at the news Michigan’s most recent Republican governor, Rick Snyder, would help lead House Republicans’ fundraising for the 2024 election, telling MLive in June the selection was “horrific” and “disturbing.”
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