As a rule, congressional Republicans have to worry about primary challenges when they stray too far from party orthodoxy and disappoint the GOP’s far-right base. As Politico noted, Republican Rep. Bob Good of Virginia is facing an intraparty rival for an entirely different reason.
Allies of Donald Trump are ramping up a primary campaign to oust Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), ostensibly over Good’s endorsement of DeSantis, reports Cardinal News’ Markus Schmidt. They’re putting their chips on state Sen. John McGuire, a former Navy SEAL who campaigned for Trump in Iowa this past weekend.
The report quoted Chris LaCivita, a senior aide to Trump, saying, “Bob Good won’t be electable when we get done with him.”
For those unfamiliar with Good, it’s difficult to overstate just how far to the right he is. We are, after all, talking about the current chairman of the radical House Freedom Caucus.
As regular readers know, the Virginia Republican made headlines in December 2020 when he called the pandemic a “phony” crisis. More recently, Good has championed the baseless impeachment crusade against President Joe Biden, pushed a debt ceiling crisis, and was part of the GOP faction that ousted then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October.
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has referred to the congressman as a “legislative terrorist,” and even one of his Freedom Caucus colleagues recently conceded that Good is not a constructive policymaker.
When looking for GOP members likely to face primary rivals from the right, Good would probably be at the very bottom of the list. And yet, here we are.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia went so far this week as to call the Virginian a “disloyal MAGA traitor.”
For his part, the far-right congressman has said he’s not overly concerned about his electoral fate, and he’s vowed to “enthusiastically support” Trump if he’s the GOP nominee.
But for now, Good remains one of DeSantis’ supporters — a perceived betrayal that Team Trump will apparently not tolerate. For the American mainstream, whether Virginia’s 5th congressional district is represented by one right-wing Republican or a different right-wing Republican might not seem especially notable, but the effort against Good is emblematic of a larger trend: Team Trump is building enemies lists, and it’s retaliating against those deemed insufficiently loyal. At a Fox News event last week, Brett Baier asked the former president how much of a prospective second term he’d spend on retribution. “I’m not going to have time for retribution,” Trump replied. I have some bad news for those who were inclined to take such rhetoric seriously.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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