The RNC personnel shake-up was part of a bigger shift that all Republican gatekeepers should make to focus on election integrity.
Michael Whatley and Lara Trump took over the top spots, with a cascade of other Trump affiliates being announced for positions throughout the organization.
This from thefederalist.com.
This news was well received among President Trump’s supporters, many of whom saw the former RNC as an enforcement arm of the D.C. establishment, solidifying it while undermining his return to power.
The report on the personnel change-up was quickly followed by an announcement that there would be a shift in focus at the RNC to election integrity.
These changes at the RNC and other organizations signal that two broader principles of a more focused MAGA movement are being put into action: Personnel is policy, and election fraud is a real threat.
When Trump was first elected in 2016, there was a scramble between fresh blood and right-wing activists who wanted to see the America First agenda fulfilled and then the D.C. establishment to fill spots in the Trump administration. The establishment maintained some control of personnel placement at the RNC and other organizations, which ended up steering staff placement in the new administration in a way that crippled the America First policy agenda for years.
It was only in the fourth year of Trump’s term, when he brought on a new team of loyalists in his Presidential Personnel Office (PPO), that detractors began to be identified, removed, and replaced with other Trump loyalists who would diligently carry out his policy agenda.
To quote a member of the new PPO about the nature of the job:
With the president’s new direction, PPO was finally exercising its critical function of quality control—so the will of the people, and the agenda they voted for, was being implemented.
To do this effectively, thorough screening techniques were used to assess whether or not current or prospective appointees should have a position in the Trump administration.
The effectiveness of these methods was evident in the uproar they caused among appointees who should not have been there in the first place. Had there been a second term in 2021, the strategy for personnel changes would have allowed for much more effective implementation of the president’s policy agenda.
The recent staff changes at the RNC show continuity on Trump’s part “in recognizing that personnel is policy and that he will take action to get the right people into the right places to prevent subversive staff from crippling the policy agenda that the American people want carried out leading into 2025.”
The old RNC leadership’s attitude toward
election fraud was ambiguous at best.
The new leadership at the RNC knows that for Trump to win in 2025, the RNC must be staffed up with people who are not afraid to say that election fraud and irregularities exist and will work with zeal to prevent that from happening in November.
They are making the right move in using more effective vetting techniques and screening current and prospective employees for whether they see election fraud as a problem.
Personnel implements policy, and new leadership at the RNC must show they are willing to get their hands dirty and make some bold changes to get more effective and aligned people into the places they need to be to secure a Trump win.
Further:
Other Republican gatekeepers [must] take the RNC’s lead and vet current and prospective employees for compatibility with Trump’s agenda.
Current staff in every branch of government, Trump-friendly think tanks, and adjacent organizations like the RNC should be doubling down on election integrity leading into the election in 2025.
If those currently holding positions of authority in these organizations don’t think it is feasible that there was election fraud in 2020, they should be removed from their position and replaced with someone serious.
