After a disastrous 5 months, the Republican Party is getting back on its feet

Years from now, remember Easter weekend 2021.

The coronavirus was receding, the Biden administration had finished takeoff and was easing into cruising speed, and the Republican Party somehow, miraculously, found its mojo.

“Miraculously” because since November, the GOP has been a smoldering wreck.

It had lost the White House and the U.S. Senate, perpetrated a phony story about stolen votes, disgraced itself with the seizure of the U.S. Capitol and had even begun to subdivide.

A Democratic-controlled federal government kept its razor wire around the Capitol, less as a defense against white nationalist militias, it seemed, than as a reminder of conservative-party dysfunction.

Prospects for a Republican recovery were bleak.

Matt Gaetz brought a cleansing moment

Then came news that U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, the most Trump-like of Trump sycophants, had stepped in it.

Gaetz has all of the Trump hallmarks – the brash manner, the weird hair, the constant whiff of scandal.

By Easter weekend, Gaetz was neck deep in allegations that he had bedded a 17-year-old girl and shown photos of nude girls to his fellow members of Congress.

Another GOP setback?

Perhaps. But for many in the caucus, Gaetz’s bad behavior had finally caught up to him – a cleansing, bracing moment.

Georgia uproar gave the GOP its spine

The real action was in Georgia, where corporate America was punishing that state’s Republican legislature for passing an election-reform bill that Joe Biden called “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”

And further south in Florida, a popular Republican governor faced the harsh glare of national media, accused of trading vaccine contracts for campaign cash.

Out of that adversity came the first signs of a Republican spring, a clear manifestation the party has escaped its death throes and is ready to compete again in the 2022 midterms and for the White House in 2024.

What changed?

This. Major League Baseball gave the Republican Party the spine to stand up for itself.

Baseball pulled its All-Star Game out of Atlanta for 2021, costing the state a purported $100 million in economic impact and lighting a fire under Georgia’s Republican leadership.

The game was reacting to the anger of African Americans aimed at Georgia’s new election-reform law, which they saw as the continuation of voter suppression that had long stained this once Confederate state.

Biden exaggerated the law's impact

The new Georgia election law deserved criticism. Its impetus was the “Stop the Steal” campaign Donald Trump cooked up after losing the White House to Joe Biden. Trump’s post-election challenge was a clown show that turned into the disgraceful assault on the nation’s Capitol. Now it helped inspire Georgia’s new election reforms.

But opponents of those reforms missed something important about the Republican voting project in Georgia. It was led and supported in part by a GOP governor, secretary of state and attorney general who had stood up to Trump, rejected his allegations of election fraud and defended the integrity of Joe Biden's victory.

The legislative process in Georgia had grinded down some of the worst aspects of the bill until it had produced legislation that many commentators left and right now acknowledge is fairly mundane and, on the whole, makes it easier to vote in Georgia.

Joe Biden called the new law “sick” and “Jim Crow on steroids.” He even encouraged baseball to pull its All-Star Game, an extraordinary thing for a sitting president to do, especially to a state that had just sent two Democrats to the U.S. Senate.

In so doing, Biden had exaggerated details of the bill and was called out by the Washington Post and CNN, otherwise friendly platforms to the White House.

Gov. Kemp successfully fought back

Biden wasn’t alone. Lots of liberal politicians were encouraging corporate America to punish Georgia. Generally the script for these things is that corporate chieftains roar and GOP state governments buckle. But Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp called a press conference and refused to cede ground.

“I want to be clear – I will not be backing down from this fight,” he said. “Secure, accessible elections are worth the threats. They are worth the boycotts as well as the lawsuits.”

With the assembled GOP leadership behind him, Kemp told Americans nationally to not be intimidated. “Georgians and all Americans should know what this decision means. It means cancel culture and partisan activists are coming for your business. They’re coming for your game, or event, in your hometown.”

Conservative media cheered.

“The rush by corporate leaders to denounce Georgia’s new voting law will rank in infamy as one of the most cowardly, cynical and socially destructive moves in modern history,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker.

Dems backtrack, ask not to boycott

Georgia Democrats who had thumped the tub for corporate backlash were now begging off.

Voting rights activist Stacey Abrams called on American business not to boycott the state. “Leaving us behind won’t save us.”

U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, wrote, “I absolutely oppose and reject any notion of boycotting Georgia.”

And U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock said, “It is my hope that businesses, athletes, and entertainers can protest this law not by leaving Georgia but by coming here.”

Why the retreat? 

Baseball’s boycott “could have profound political implications in Georgia,” wrote Atlanta Journal-Constitution political reporter Greg Bluestein.

For Gov. Kemp, who was potentially facing a bruising primary for reelection and a tough general election battle against Abrams, it was a godsend.

Not only did Democrats fear they would be blamed for baseball’s All-Star pullout, the action itself was uniting the Republican Party in Georgia.

“For the last five months, Kemp has had to answer endless questions about his problems with former President Donald Trump and the GOP base,” Bluestein wrote. “Now he’s finally able to play the hero to the pro-Trump crowd.”

Gov. DeSantis wins after 60 Minutes expose

A more significant rise in Republican fortunes came with the 60 Minutes exposé on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Ignoring the oft-cited dictum “You don’t shoot at the king and miss,” CBS aimed its lens at DeSantis on Easter weekend and missed widely. The piece accused DeSantis of granting a contract to the Publix grocery store chain to administer COVID-19 vaccine in return for a $100,000 campaign contribution to his political campaign.  

Not only had 60 Minutes left out relevant information on the Publix contract, it compelled Democrat leaders in Florida to defend the Republican governor.

Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner, a Democrat, accused 60 Minutes of an “intentionally false” report that failed to address significant counterpoints to their narrative and said CBS should be “ashamed.”

Even the Poynter Institute journalism school smacked 60 Minutes.

Emboldened, DeSantis went on the offensive. He pointed to facts 60 Minutes left out and called the story “horse manure.” As he did he raised his profile nationally among Republicans.

DeSantis is “making immense political capital because he was a target of a journalistic hit job,” former Trump administration official Alexei Woltornist told The Hill. “Not only did he catch them, he exposed them.”

Ultimately, leadership will save the GOP

It also put a spotlight on what can save the GOP – leadership.

And DeSantis is brimming with it.

Like Trump he’s a fighter, but where Trump is haphazard and crude, DeSantis is disciplined and polished. “He’s begun to emerge from Trump’s shadow, working to further define himself as a military veteran and a man of unyielding principles,” according to a profile published in the Miami Herald.

A scholar-athlete, he earned his undergraduate degree at Yale, where he was an outstanding baseball player, and got his doctorate from Harvard Law. In the military, the Navy assigned him to its SEAL Team One and deployed him to Iraq as legal adviser to its commander.

He served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before winning Florida’s governorship in 2018. He has earned the respect of the establishment GOP for his defense of traditional Republican values and the admiration of Trump supporters because he doesn’t run from conflict. Nearly all admire his able and balanced management of the pandemic.

The last days of Trump did extensive and long-term damage to the Republican Party. The work ahead is immense.

In DeSantis a new leader has emerged who is not afraid to carry the banner of American conservatism. And you better believe the Democrats know it.

Phil Boas is editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic. He can be reached at 602-444-8292 or phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.