The Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference often lures a who’s who of GOP power players to Michigan. Wealthy donors shake hands with presidential candidates, who give rousing speeches to packed audiences in hopes of winning the conference’s straw poll.
The event is typically a money-maker for its sponsor – the Michigan Republican Party – helping to fund get-out-the-vote efforts and support campaigns to get Republicans elected throughout the state.
But this year’s conference was decidedly different.
The only presidential candidate to show up was Vivek Ramaswamy, who was mostly polling in the single digits. The line-up of speakers included failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake; Zuby, a British rapper who occasionally appears on Fox News; and, conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza, who ultimately did not show up.
The biggest draw was actor Jim Caviezel, a promoter of QAnon conspiracy theories, who had a hit movie this summer but is perhaps best known for playing Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ” movie 20 years ago. He was paid a $110,000 fee to attend and give a 25-minute speech.
The event, simply put, was “a disaster,” said Warren Carpenter, an active party member and former district chair.
and, conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza, who ultimately did not show up.
Hey, maybe things are getting better.
Oh look, the consequences of your actions.
Now that the consequences are reality and no longer predictions, think the voters of Michigan will realize their folly and self correct?
I just listened to the This American Life podcast episode about this.
I enjoyed the schadenfreude, particularly listening to different people talk about how the new leader must be a deep-state plant put in place by the Democrats to destroy the GOP in Michigan. No, you dipshits, you voted for her to be your leader. You wanted someone who fully bought into Trump’s lies about the last election, and (big shock) the person you chose is a complete moron.
There were also two Muslim dudes complaining that despite being elected to leadership positions in the Michigan GOP (they ran unopposed), they were cut out of involvement and planning. They claim it is because they are Muslim. The leader says it’s not true, but they have screenshots of communications with her that back up their story. Got real “sheep desperately trying to support the wolf party” vibes from them.
We need more GOP organizations like this. Once the GOP has completely self-destructed, we can go to work on the Democrats, and maybe end up with a government that actually cares about people instead of billionaires.
I don’t think it will ever happen, but it’s still nice to see the GOP unwittingly destroying themselves.
This is older news (the Mackinac conference was months ago). Since then:
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Karamo and the state party attorney are attempting to sue the trust that owns the local GOP HQ so she can sell it to pay off some of the party debt.
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Comerica Bank says the party defaulted on a big loan
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a state GOP in-person meeting had their venue cancel due to threats of Israel-Gaza war protestors showing up. Karamo was radio silent to party members and announced an online meeting at the last minute. This pissed a ton of folks off because Karamo does this to control who can speak during meetings. Anti-Karamo party members organized a separate in person meeting where they discussed removing her.
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it’s revealed instead of the usual millions of dollars the party would have leading into a presidential election year, the party only has around $35k and over $600k debt.
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her running mate joined the calls for her removal and the GOP is gathering signatures for her removal.
Latest local news on this infighting:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/25/kristina-karamos-running-mate-wants-meeting-to-discuss-her-removal/72023000007/
She appeared at MAGA rallies and ran a failed campaign for Michigan’s secretary of state in 2022 with false claims such as the notion that “authoritarians” inside the US believe “that if they can corrupt battleground election systems, they can control America. This nefarious plot is real and it’s happening.”
Yes. That is what she is doing.
