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    The Republican Party and the Scourge of Extremist Violence

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    This editorial is the fourth in a series, The Danger Within, urging readers to understand the danger of extremist violence — and offering possible solutions. Read more about the series in a note from Kathleen Kingsbury, the Times Opinion editor.

    On Oct. 12, 2018, a crowd of Proud Boys arrived at the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan. They had come to the Upper East Side club from around the country for a speech by the group’s founder, Gavin McInnes. It was a high point for the Proud Boys — which until that point had been known best as an all-male right-wing street-fighting group — in their embrace by mainstream politics.The Metropolitan Republican Club is an emblem of the Republican establishment. It was founded in 1902 by supporters of Theodore Roosevelt, and it’s where New York City Republicans such as Fiorello La Guardia and Rudy Giuliani announced their campaigns. But the presidency of Donald Trump whipped a faction of the Metropolitan Republican Club into “an ecstatic frenzy,” said John William Schiffbauer, a Republican consultant who used to work for the state G.O.P. on the second floor of the club.The McInnes invitation was controversial, even before a group of Proud Boys left the building and violently confronted protesters who had gathered outside. Two of the Proud Boys were later convicted of attempted assault and riot and given four years in prison. The judge who sentenced them explained the relatively long prison term: “I know enough about history to know what happened in Europe in the ’30s when political street brawls were allowed to go ahead without any type of check from the criminal justice system,” he said. Seven others pleaded guilty in the episode.And yet Republicans at the New York club have not distanced themselves from the Proud Boys. Soon after the incident, a candidate named Ian Reilly, who, former club members say, had a lead role in planning the speech, won the next club presidency. He did so in part by recruiting followers of far-right figures, such as Milo Yiannopoulos, to pack the club’s ranks at the last minute. A similar group of men repeated the strategy at the New York Young Republicans Club, filling it with far-right members, too.Many moderate Republicans have quit the clubs in disgust. Looking back, Mr. Schiffbauer said, Oct. 12, 2018, was a “proto” Jan. 6.In conflicts like this one —  not all of them played out so publicly — there is a fight underway for the soul of the Republican Party. On one side are Mr. Trump and his followers, including extremist groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. On the other side stand those in the party who remain committed to the principle that politics, even the most contentious politics, must operate within the constraints of peaceful democracy. It is vital that this pro-democracy faction win out over the extremists and push the fringes back to the fringes.It has happened before. The Republican Party successfully drove the paranoid extremists of the John Birch Society out of public life in the 1960s. Party leaders could do so again for the current crop of conspiracy peddlers. Voters may do it for them, as they did in so many races in this year’s midterm elections. But this internal Republican Party struggle is important for reasons far greater than the tally in a win/loss column. A healthy democracy requires both political parties to be fully committed to the rule of law and not to entertain or even tacitly encourage violence or violent speech. A large faction of one party in our country fails that test, and that has consequences for all of us.Extremist violence is the country’s top domestic terrorist threat, according to a three-year investigation by the Democratic staff members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which reported its findings last week. “Over the past two decades, acts of domestic terrorism have dramatically increased,” the committee said in its report. “National security agencies now identify domestic terrorism as the most persistent and lethal terrorist threat to the homeland. This increase in domestic terror attacks has been predominantly perpetrated by white supremacist and anti-government extremist individuals and groups.” While there have been recent episodes of violent left-wing extremism, for the past few years, political violence has come primarily from the right.This year has been marked by several high-profile acts of political violence: an attempted break-in at an F.B.I. office in Ohio; the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the House; the mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo by a white supremacist; an armed threat against Justice Brett Kavanaugh; a foiled plan to attack a synagogue in New York. More

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    Lisa Murkowski Wins Re-election in Alaska, Beating a Trump-Backed Rival

    Ms. Murkowski was the only Senate Republican up for re-election this year who voted to convict former President Donald J. Trump in his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a centrist Republican, won a fourth full term on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press, overcoming a conservative backlash against her independent streak and her vote to convict former President Donald J. Trump for incitement of insurrection after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.Ms. Murkowski was declared the winner after securing more than 50 percent of the vote, a mandated threshold under the state’s new ranked-choice system. She defeated Kelly Tshibaka, a conservative rival backed by Mr. Trump and the state Republican Party, and Pat Chesbro, a Democrat.While Democrats have maintained their control of the Senate, Ms. Murkowski is now positioned to remain a pivotal swing vote in the chamber and to wield significant seniority on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the Appropriations Committee, which controls government funding. A Senate runoff election in Georgia on Dec. 6 will determine if the upper chamber remains evenly divided, or if Democrats will secure a 51st seat.With 135,972 votes after multiple rounds of tabulation, Ms. Murkowski secured 53.7 percent of the vote, the Alaska Division of Elections said. Ms. Tshibaka received 46.3 percent and 117,299 votes, while Ms. Chesbro was eliminated in an earlier round with a total of 29,078 votes. “I am honored that Alaskans — of all regions, backgrounds and party affiliations — have once again granted me their confidence to continue working with them and on their behalf in the U.S. Senate,” Ms. Murkowski said in a statement. “I look forward to continuing the important work ahead of us.”In a statement, Ms. Tshibaka congratulated Ms. Murkowski, even as she criticized the ranked-choice system and Republican leaders in Washington for pouring millions of dollars into the race. She said the election “turned out to be another victory for the Washington, D.C. insiders who rarely have our best interests at heart.”The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More