Steve Schmidt Says January 6 Will Start Destructive Civil War in GOP by Khaleda Rahman Newsweek 1/3/2021

Steve Schmidt Says January 6 Will Start Destructive Civil War in GOP By Khaleda Rahman Newsweek 1/3/2021

A civil war inside the Republican Party will commence on January 6, according to Steve Schmidt, a GOP strategist who co-founded the Lincoln Project. In lengthy thread on Twitter Sunday, Schmidt said the Republican Party will divide into irreconcilable factions when Congress meets on Wednesday to certify Joe Biden's victory in 2020 election. A growing number of Republican lawmakers have announced their intention to oppose the Electoral College certification, backing President Donald Trump's ongoing effort to overturn the election result. Trump has continued to allege his defeat was due to widespread voter fraud, despite election officials concluding there were no irregularities that would have affected the outcome of the vote. Trump and the GOP lawmakers' efforts are expected to do little to stop Biden from being inaugurated on January 20 — but Schmidt believes their actions will have a catastrophic impact on the Republican Party going forward. The die is cast for the Republican Party. It will be destroyed on January 6th in much the same way the Whig party was destroyed by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, he tweeted. The act unraveled the Missouri compromise and allowed for the westward expansion of slavery. The party could not survive its factionalism. There could be no more accommodation, compromise and partnership between pro-slavery and anti-slavery Whigs. Schmidt explained that as a result, a new political party was born, the Republican Party and that party will divide into irreconcilable factions on January 6th. That date will commence a political civil war inside the GOP, he continued. The autocratic side will roll over the pro-democracy remnant of the GOP like the Wehrmacht did the Belgian Army in 1940. The '22 GOP primary season will be a bloodletting. The 6th will be a loyalty test. The purge will follow. Schmidt went on: The poisonous fruit from four years of collaboration and complicity with Trump’s insanity, illiberalism and incompetence are ready for harvest. It will kill the GOP because it's Pro-Democracy faction and Autocratic factions can no more exist together then [sic] could the Whig Party hold together the abolitionist with the Slave master. It won't happen overnight but the destination is clear. The Conservative party in America is dead. It may continue to bear the name Republican but it will be no such thing. The abolitionist with the Slave master. It won't happen overnight but the destination is clear. The Conservative party in America is dead. It may continue to bear the name Republican but it will be no such thing. Fascism has indeed come to America and as was once predicted. There are only two sides in American politics now. There is the American side and the Autocratic side. May God help us all if we falter, flag or fail in defense of American democracy. Steve Schmidt 1/3/2021 Schmidt's tweets became more ominous as he continued. Fascism has indeed come to America and as was once predicted it is wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. This movement must be defeated. It cannot be appeased, accommodated or negotiated with. It must be recognized for what it is and we must all recognize the new age of American politics it has wrought. There are only two sides in American politics now. There is the American side and the Autocratic side. May God help us all if we falter, flag or fail in defense of American democracy. Talk of civil war broke out among Trump supporters on the Parler social media platform after the Republican senators announced their plans to challenge Biden's Electoral College certification. Thousands of Trump supporters are expected to head to Washington, D.C. on January 6 to join protests after being urged to do so by the president. Members of the Proud Boys, a far right group known to incite violence, are also expected to attend in large numbers.