GOP Chair Ronna McDaniel—She Fails to Denounce Demagogue Donald’s “Vermin” Rant November 16, 2023
You know the old saying, “If it acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it’s a duck.” Well, if Demagogue Donald “acts like a fascist, talks like a fascist, and behaves like a fascist, he is one.” And, frankly, until now, far too many pundits and members of the press have failed to call out Demagogue Donald for truly being a homegrown American fascist. If Trump’s numerous attempts to destroy democracy during his first term in office, 2017-2021, didn’t prove to many in the ”chattering political class” that he truly had fascistic views, maybe his most recent rant will finally wake them up. On this past Veteran’s Day, when we honored our veterans, including members of the WWII Greatest Generation who defeated the scourge of fascism, what did the leading GOP presidential candidate who wants a second term in 2025, wacko Donald Trump, write in a post? He brazenly wrote, “In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like ‘vermin’ within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and the American Dream (thehill.com, Nazzaro, 11/13/23).”
When pressed about Trump’s “vermin” comments on several Sunday talk shows, GOP National Committee Chair (RNC) Ronna McDaniel dodged and failed to denounce Trumps’s awful “vermin” rant. She merely stated that Trump and all the GOP “support our veterans.” The term “vermin” was effectively used by Hitler and Mussolini to attack their opponents, especially Jews. Calling Jews “vermin,” led, to their dehumanization and, then, of course, to the Holocaust in which Hitler’s Nazis exterminated six million European Jews. On an MSNBC 11/13/2023 show, presidential historian Jon Meacham stated that calling your opponents “vermin” not only dehumanizes them, but also, as in the case of Hitler and Mussolini opens the door “toward the most ghastly kinds of crimes (thehill.com, 11/13/23).” Liz Cheney, a former Wyoming conservative GOP Congressmember, attacked Demagogue Donald’s “vermin” comments as “Nazi propaganda.” Cheney rebuked GOP chair Ronna McDaniel for failing to condemn Trump for using this Nazi propaganda. Cheney also wrote a post on X, formerly Twitter. In that post, she correctly stated, “History will judge Ronna McDaniel and every Republican who is appeasing this dangerous man (thehill.com, Nazzaro, 11/13/23).” Cheney, unlike McDaniel, paid the ultimate political price for condemning Trump for encouraging the January, 6, 2021, attempted D.C. Capitol coup. She lost her seat in a GOP primary. Who is this Ronna McDaniel?
As previously mentioned, Ronna Romney McDaniel (50) currently serves as chair of the Republican National Committee. She comes from political “royalty.” She is the granddaughter of former Michigan Governor and businessman George Romney and is a niece of Utah U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, a former MA Governor and the GOP 2012 presidential nominee. Her father, Scott Romney, was Mitt’s older brother. Her mother unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in MI in 1996, served on the RNC, and was a delegate to the 1988 GOP Convention. Ronna Romney McDaniel’s grandmother, Lenore Romney, unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970. Ronna Romney McDaniel stated that her family inspired her political career. A native of Austin TX, Ronna Romney McDaniel went to high school in Michigan and received her undergraduate degree from Mormon Brigham Young University (Bush, D., cnn.com, 6/22/17, Burke, M., detroitnews.com, 2/06/18).
In 2012, McDaniel worked in MI for her uncle Mitt’s unsuccessful presidential campaign against Obama. She was elected MI’s representative to the Republican National Committee (RNC) in 2014. In 2015, McDaniel ran and won election to be chair of MI’s Republican Party. She received the support of the GOP establishment and the anti-government Tea Party set (freep.com, Egan, P., 2/21/15). In 2016, McDaniel served as a delegate for Trump at the GOP Convention. McDaniel was an early supporter of Demagogue Donald. McDaniel, in fact, had activist Wendy Day removed as GOP grassroots vice-chair because she refused to support Trump (detroitnews.com, 11/14/16).
When RNC Chair Reince Priebus became Trump’s Chief-of-Staff, McDaniel was interested in running for that post. She was then RNC Deputy Chair. Trump recommended McDaniel to replace Priebus to head the RNC. On 1/19/2017, McDaniel was unanimously elected as[PV1] RNC Chair, the second woman to hold this office. Although she denied any pressure by Trump, the Washington Post stated that Donald had “requested” that she stop using her maiden name “Romney.” McDaniel followed Trump’s “request” and stopped using that name in official communications (washingtonpost.com, Scherer & Dawsey, 12/08/17). McDaniel was re-elected RNC Chair unanimously in both 2019 and 2021 both times with Donald’s endorsements (Greenwood, M., 1/08/21, thehill.com). On 1/27/2023, McDaniel was re-elected RNC Chair going into the 2024 presidential campaign. She is the longest-serving RNC Chair since the Civil War (npr.org, 1/27/23). McDaniel is a prolific fundraiser and heavily outraised Democrats in the 2018 midterms, but Democrats still took back the House. McDaniel was totally surprised by this result (See politico.com, 12/11/18).
We should not at all be shocked by McDaniel’s failure to condemn Trump for his “vermin” comments or any other beyond outrageous statements he makes. As early as 2018, the NY Times described McDaniel as “unfailingly loyal to Trump (Peters, J., 1/13/18).” McDaniel, in 2018, even praised Trump as a “moral leader (Garry & Ellefson, cnn.com, 4/16/18).” The “Journal of Politics” stated that under her leadership, the RNC consistently promoted Trump and his policies. Under McDaniel, the RNC ran ads for Trump’s 2020 campaign as early as 2018. She put many Trump campaign workers on the RNC payroll. Under McDaniel, this group harshly criticized Trump opponents in the GOP. McDaniel tweeted that those who do not embrace Trump’s agenda “will be making a mistake (huffingtonpost.com, Mazza, E., 6/14/18).” In 1/2019, McDaniel criticized her Uncle Mitt, then an incoming Senator, for writing an anti-Trump editorial. She stated that her uncle “was helping Democrats and the mainstream media (See Wise, J., 1/02/19).” McDaniel declared that “history would look back on how well Trump handled the pandemic.” She said this even after hearing an audio recording where Trump stated he was “intentionally downplaying the coronavirus (McCaskill, N., 9/13/20, politico.com).”
After Biden won the 2020 election, McDaniel claimed without evidence that there was “large-scale electoral fraud and voter fraud. She had the RNC promote conspiracy theories about the election (Oprysko, C, 11/06/20, politico.com, 11/24/20). In 2022, RNC Chair McDaniel led efforts to censure then GOP Congressmembers Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger because they had voted to impeach Trump over his incitement of the 1/06/21 mob that breached the Capitol, and because they had served on the bipartisan committee to investigate that attack. McDaniel’s censure motion described this fatal coup attempt as “legitimate political discourse (Weisman & Epstein, nytimes.com, 2/04/22, washingtonpost.com, 2/03/22).” During the fourth public January 6th committee hearing, the House presented a video excerpt of a deposition from McDaniel where she revealed that at the request of Trump and now disbarred attorney John Eastman, she had the RNC help organize fake electors for Trump (Breuninger, K., 6/22/22)! You get the idea. Ronna McDaniel is a total tool who helped fascist-loving Donad Trump in every way she could to overthrow our democracy.
McDaniel is no GOP outlier. She heads THE key “Team Red” organization, the Republican National Committee, now a wholly owned Trump subsidiary. The only way to preserve our democracy is to vote in droves for President Biden and for Democrats in the House, Senate, and at state levels in 2024. Trump and his loyalist disciples like Ronna McDaniel must be thoroughly discredited.
[PV1] Chair