2024-03-12 10:20:00
Restructuring at the Republicans Trump team is organizing “absolute bloodbath” at party leadership
March 12, 2024, 11:20 a.m. Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
Donald Trump is restructuring the Republican party leadership according to his ideas. His daughter-in-law is already deputy party leader. There is now a wave of layoffs in the current Republican leadership.
After former President Donald Trump’s de facto victory in the Republican primaries, the new party leadership began a radical restructuring of the Republican leadership. The Trump people started the layoffs on Monday, US media reported, citing people close to Trump’s campaign team and the Republican party leadership.
All in all, more than 60 employees who previously worked for the Republican National Committee (RNC) are expected to be laid off, writes the US news site Politico. There are at least five managers among them. One of the sources described the situation as an “absolute bloodbath.” It seems “crazy” to “gut” the party leadership shortly before the election, a former RNC employee told the Washington Post.
The party system in the USA is very different from those in Germany and Europe. The federal parties of Republicans and Democrats have little political weight; the president or presidential candidate is seen as the leader of the parties. Since Republican Nikki Haley withdrew her bid for her party’s presidential nomination following Super Tuesday, Trump is practically the candidate. He will not be officially elected until the Republican nomination convention, which will take place in July in Milwaukee.
Daughter-in-law is the new party deputy leader
On Friday, Trump loyalist Michael Whatley was elected as the new Republican party chairman – not at a party conference, as would be the case in Germany, but by the members of the RNC. Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife, became Whatley’s deputy. After her election, she made it clear what she saw as her task: “This isn’t just regarding right versus left, Republicans versus Democrats. It’s regarding good versus evil.”
Whatley’s predecessor Ronna McDaniel was chosen by Trump following his election victory in 2016. Her term of office was therefore unusually long. Recently, however, she fell out of favor with Trump, partly because the donations collected by the RNC dwindled.
The fact that presidential candidates also secure access to the party leadership in terms of personnel is nothing special in the USA. The blatant nepotism is unusual. However, Trump’s is not a new phenomenon either: his son-in-law Jared Kushner was already his de facto campaign manager in 2016. When Trump moved into the White House, he made Kushner chief adviser and later, among other things, Middle East peace envoy. Daughter Ivanka Trump also became a presidential adviser.
Both Politico and the British “Guardian” quote a letter from RNC CEO Sean Cairncross to some employees in which he writes that the new party leadership is in the process of “assessing the organization and personnel to ensure that the building with “consistent with their vision”. During this process, “certain employees would be asked to resign and reapply for a position within the team.” Employees who do not reapply will be laid off at the end of March.
According to information from the Guardian, the RNC is involved in the election campaign to such a large extent that the layoffs are primarily intended to avoid overlaps in the tasks of party leadership and the Trump team. In principle, the central management of US election campaigns lies not with the parties, but with the candidates’ staff.
1710241056
#Restructuring #among #Republicans #Trump #team #organizes #absolute #bloodbath #party #leadership
