The Club for Growth bills itself as “the leading free-enterprise advocacy group in the nation,” whose mission is to “exert maximum pressure on lawmakers to vote like free-market, limited government conservatives.” Politico reports that its newest campaign is to support primary challenges against two prominent House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump over his unsuccessful putsch.
Perhaps this sounds confusing. What does “free enterprise” have to do with taking revenge on Republicans who didn’t want Trump to seize an unelected second term? Indeed, the two Republican targets of the campaign, Liz Cheney and Anthony Gonzalez, are fervent advocates of precisely the model of ossified Reaganite anti-government dogma the Club for Growth promotes.
What this intervention illustrates is how deeply intertwined the supply-side movement has become with Donald Trump and his authoritarian style.