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Specification: 

  • Edexcel: Component 3A: 5.2.2 The current conflicts and tendencies and the changing power and influence that exist within the parties.

  • AQA: Component 2: 3.2.1.6 Political parties: factionalised nature of parties and internal divisions.

Background: what you need to know 

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) has only just been elected to the House of Representatives, but has already become notorious. She has voiced support for false QAnon conspiracy theories, including the fiction that no aircraft crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. Her belief that school shootings were faked by anti-gun activists led her in 2018 to publicly harass a young survivor of the Parkland, Florida school shooting, in which 17 students and teachers died, shouting that he was a “coward”. She continues to insist that Trump won the 2020 presidential election despite the lack of evidence for this assertion.

Although she claimed in a speech on February 4 that she no longer believed in QAnon conspiracy theories, she did not apologise for her previous statements or for her retweeting of a white supremacist terrorist’s threat to shoot Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi in the head. No wonder that Pelosi referred to her as “the enemy within”, and even Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell described her “loony lies and conspiracy theories” as “a cancer” on the party.

After House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy declined to take action against Greene, the House of Representatives in a highly unusual move voted to remove her from her committee assignments, including the education committee, which her offensive comments on school shootings made especially controversial.

When a party loses control of the House, the presidency and the Senate in quick succession, recriminations are only to be expected, but the divisions in the Republican Party in 2021 look to be particularly bitter.

Click to read the article below and then answer the questions:

House plans vote to eject Marjorie Taylor Greene from committees

House votes to eject Marjorie Taylor Greene from committees

Question in the style of Edexcel Politics A-level: Paper 3

  • Evaluate the view that the Republican Party’s internal divisions are of greater significance than the differences of principle and policy between it and the Democratic Party. You must consider this view and the alternative to this view in a balanced way. (30 marks)

Question in the style of AQA Politics A-level: Paper 2

  • Explain and analyse three ways in which Donald Trump’s legacy has proved toxic for the Republican Party. (9 marks)

Mark Rathbone

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