The multi-front battle for the soul of the Republican Party

A high-stakes battle for the soul of the Republican Party is underway thathas far-reaching implications for the coming era ofAmerican politics and the country'sturbulent democracy.

One front in this battle opens up this week with the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, which begins Tuesdayas Republicans grapple with just how far to go in defending theformer president, whose effort to overturn an election result ended in deadly tragedy amid the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

So far, those rare Republican lawmakers who've daredto criticize Trumphave faced a torrent of angerfrom party supporters and threats to their own political future.

A case in point is Washington congresswoman Jaime HerreraBeutler, one of the few Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted last month to impeach Trump for "incitement of insurrection,"leading to this week's trial, which begins Tuesday.

She recently received bad news from a party officialin her home district who told herconstituents were calling the party officeslivid at Herrera Beutler.

"[We've gotten] dozens and dozens of calls," said Joel Mattila, the Republican Party chair in Washington state's Clark County, which is in Herrera Beutler's district.

"People [are] just off-their-rocker angry."

So were there any positive calls?Maybe one for every 25 or 30 angry ones,Mattila told CBC News.

Polling suggests Trump faction holds advantage

Based on polling, public comments and actions by party officials, the Trump-all-the-way faction appears to hold an advantage at this stage.

In fact, Republican supporters seem angrierwith the 10 lawmakers in the House of Representatives who defied Trump and voted on Jan. 13 to impeach him a second time than they are with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a newly elected congresswoman from Georgia who has repeatedly pushed racist, violent, derangedand anti-government conspiracy theories.

Not only are those who voted to impeach being sanctionedby party membersin South Carolina, Wyoming, IllinoisandMichigan they're even beingthreatened. And in Washington state,the party issplitover whether to simply condemn Herrera Beutler in a statementor formally censure her.

Anotherthreat tothese members comes frompro-Trump rivals hoping to unseat them in primary challenges before next year'scongressional midterm elections.

That's the other bad news Mattila delivered: that Herrera Beutler'spolitical career could be in jeopardy.

Asked howlikely it is that Herrera Beutlerwillface a primary challenge, on a scale of 1 to 10, Mattilasaid it's "like a99."

"I told her she's in trouble," hesaid.

"It's the intensity level of the anger that I'm hearing from people that say, 'I've always voted for her and I'm never gonna vote for her again.I hope you guys recruit a candidate, and we're gonna support somebody else.'"

Here's one final bit oftroubling news for thecongresswoman: Her county chair is against her, too.

Mattilasaid in his opinion, Trump never deserved to be impeachedbecause henever explicitly called for an attack on the Capitol building at a rally on Jan. 6, the same day lawmakers were meeting inside to confirm that Joe Biden won November's presidential election.And Mattila said he's not ruling out running for Herrera Beutler's seat himself.

The blowbackfor Cheney at home

A similar storyis playing out inWyoming.

Rep. Liz Cheney, the state's highest-profile lawmaker, easily survived a vote among Republicans in Washington, D.C., to keep her leadership position after she voted in the House to impeach Trump.

A move to strip her of her role as conference chair was blocked byRepublican lawmakers ina 145-61 vote. But that vote happenedby secret ballot. And it was in Washington.

Things could get rougherback home in Wyoming.

The Trump team has commissioned a poll suggesting thatjust 10 per cent of Republican primary voters in Cheney's state planned to support heragain.

She's been censured by her own partyin numerous counties. In one Wyoming county, the party vice-chair said people feel betrayed by Cheney and thathe wished she'd lost herWashington leadership role.

Hesaid he's seeing 10 or 20 negative comments about Cheney for every positive onefrom local Republicans.

"I thought I knew her very well. But I'm sad to say, apparently, I didn't," said John Birbari, the party's vice-chair in Wyoming's Fremont County.

He predicted that Cheney's next event in the county "would either be poorly attended or would be a little raucous."

Birbari put the chances of a primary challenge against Cheney at "100 per cent," with one bid already announced by a Wyoming state senator.

The church elder, former newspaper ad executiveand radio host who was embroiled in a local controversy over anti-gay commentssaid he would personally support the primary challenger.

Defending Trump's actions

But what about the serious allegations against Trump, which prompted all House Democrats and five per cent of Republicans to vote to impeach?

The chargeis that Trump imperilled American democracy,spending weeks peddling unfounded conspiracy theories about his election loss, pressuring officials to overturn the resultand finally at aJan. 6 rally, where his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, called for 'trial by combat' encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol.

Birbari brushedit off, sayingit's unconstitutional for Trump's impeachment trial to occur after he's already left office which isa matter of legal debate.

He also insisted thatTrump was right about the election being rigged despite the fact that dozens of judges and officials in a half-dozen swing states disagree.

What about Marjorie Taylor Greene: Do these same Republican officials have anything similarly negative to say about her?Birbari said he hasn't followed theTaylor Greene story much, and Mattila also said he's unfamiliar with the details.

Eleven House Republicans did vote with Democrats to expel the conspiracy-peddling congresswoman from her committee positions; by comparison, 45 voted to punish Cheney.

'Strange, unknown, bad territory'for U.S. politics

A scholar at the Washington-based Niskanen Centerthink-tank who has studied and written extensively about the history of the Republican Party saidthis is a strange moment without a clear precedent.

Geoffrey Kabaservice, the centre's director of political studies,calledit the end of an ideological conservative eraand the start of an unpredictable and worrisome new one.

"It feels like we're in strange, unknown, bad territory," said Kabaservice, who is also the author of a book that examines the Republican Party's evolution from a non-ideological coalition into a staunchly conservative party starting in the 1960s.

His book,Rule and Ruin, begins at the 1960 presidential convention, whenthe party hadfour main groups: progressives, the remaining heirs to trust-busters like Teddy Roosevelt; moderates; so-called stalwarts, who are slightly more nationalist and hawkish on issues such astrade; and conservatives.

Kabaservice saidideological conservatism grew to dominate the partybut that Republicansare transforming again, and he describedtheemerging divide as: Who's most willing to defend anything in pursuit of partisan gain?

He pointedto a metric used by political scientists to analyze American lawmakers' ideology, the DW-Nominate system, as evidence that the most pro-Trump members of Congress aren't necessarily the most conservative.

"[It's becoming] reality versus craziness. Or normies versus freaks. It's just strange and really hard to deal with for the public,for members of the Republican Party in Congress," he said.

Kabaservice saidone difference between today's Republican grassroots and the Barry Goldwater conservatives of the 1960s is that the latter believed their movement was ascendant and were generally optimistic about their chances.

He said today, many on the right voicethe opposite view,echoing Trump that the game is rigged by some un-American enemy,and if that enemy cheats to win, the party needs to toughen up.

That leads to an approach to politics in which any means are justified, Kabaservice said.

According to a new poll published by The Associated Press, few Americans, in particularRepublicans, believe American democracy is working very well.

The party chair in Washington's Clark County, however, doesn't sound pessimistic at all.Mattila notes that Republicans came close to winning both housesof Congressand predicts a dominant showing in next year's midterm elections.

"There's a red wave coming," he said.

WATCH | Article of impeachment against Trump goes to U.S. Senate:

Article of impeachment against Trump goes to U.S. Senate Monday

4 years ago

Duration 7:32

The question now for Republicans is what they want their party to look like and should it emulate aformer presidentwho spent weeks using increasingly abnormal tactics to try overturning an election result?

This struggle has begunplaying out on a variety of fronts, withmoderates winningon Cheney's leadership votebut losingbadly inavote to punish Taylor Greene.Next year's primaries will be an epic showdown. But first, there's the Senate impeachment trial and vote.

Trump's critics acknowledge they face an uphill battle.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican fromIllinois, said he lost good friends after voting to impeach Trump his father's cousins even sent him a certified letter saying they disowned him because he had joined the "devil's army."

But he said he'll keep trying, for as long as he can, to prevent angry, conspiracy-peddling Trump worshippers from completely overtaking the party of Abraham Lincoln.

"It's not going great at the moment," Kinzinger told CNN. "But this is the beginning of it."

'Conservatism' or 'madness'

Kinzinger said all Americans, including Democrats, should be pulling for people like himeven if they don't agree with his conservative principles, because, he said, the country needs two healthy political parties.

One Republican defiantly stared down hisown local activists.

In the face of a censure vote from Nebraska party officials over his criticism of Trump, Sen. Ben Sasse released a video essentially shrugging his shoulders at them.

In the video, Sasse characterized his accusers as enraged hyper-partisansout of syncwith most Americans.

He also accused them of selling out their ideals.

"Something has definitely changed over the last four years. But it's not me," Sasse said.

"Personality cults aren't conservative. Conspiracy theories aren't conservative. Lying that an election has been stolen is not conservative. Acting like politics is a religion isn't conservative," he said.

"You are welcome to censure me again. But let's be clear about why this is happening: It's because I still believe, as you used to, that politics isn't about the weird worship of one dude. The party could purge Trump skeptics. But I'd like to convince you that not only is that civic cancer for the nation it's just terrible for our party."

Sasse told Republicans that they have a choice to make: "Between conservatism and madness."