It’s Stefanik v. Cheney, University of Arizona edition.
Just as Alton Zhang was elected to lead the Federation of Arizona College Republicans, he was, unbeknownst to the rest of his state board, preparing to help his own University of Arizona College Republicans chapter secede from the federation in favor of a new Trumpian splinter group.
On May 24, only nine days after being named federation chairman, Zhang was removed in a unanimous vote by the board, which explained their decision by citing their commitment to seeing “the triumph of real conservative values over the hatred conjured up by petty radicals.” Two days before that, the U of A chapter announced that it was leaving the federation to become a College Republicans United (CRU) chapter.
CRU is a splinter group and “independently established America First organization” with a mission of “educating members on the importance of traditional values, practices, and mindsets.” Expressing discontent with the “neglect” of the national College Republicans National Committee (CRNC) umbrella organization and “qualms” with the state federation, the U of A board on which Zhang serves resolved to move “away from the ‘do nothing’ politics of yesteryear.”
Lest you dismiss the differences between CRNC and CRU as superficial, consider that CRU cites Lauren Witzke — the failed Delaware Senate candidate who granted an interview to the white supremacist website VDARE — and self-proclaimed “mommy” of the white nationalist “groypers,” Michelle Malkin, as its top two listings under the testimonial section.
The battle between CRNC affiliates and CRU has been underway for quite some time in the Grand Canyon State. It was at Arizona State in 2018 that CRU first came into being when a group of students broke away from the College Republicans club — which they deemed insufficiently supportive of President Donald Trump. “It’s in our bylaws . . . not to work with the College Republicans,” boasted CRU’s founder, Richard Thomas, to the student newspaper at the time of the schism.
Since then, CRU has expanded into California and Iowa, but it remains much smaller than the CRNC, which has chapters in all 50 states. Despite its unimpressive size, CRU has gained quite the reputation. Witzke and Malkin aside, its leadership team in Arizona has been criticized for its role in promoting bigotry.
Thomas, for example, posed for a picture in front of a white Dodge Challenger — the same kind of car used to murder Heather Heyer at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville — while holding a tiki torch. He also posted a video of special-needs children, subsequently asking the group to remind him “why we can’t have a eugenics policy again?,” enclosed Jewish names in parentheses to denote their heritage, and described actor and rapper Donald Glover as “degenerate monkey filth.” Thomas has apologized for these as well as a number of other comments made by both himself and other members of CRU.
Ryan Hurley, president of the Iowa State University College Republicans United chapter, responded to a request for comment by insisting that both Witzke and Malkin have “done much to advance the conservative movement in a positive direction” and professing to “have seen no bigotry or racism whatsoever” in CRU. Malkin was a prominent conservative pundit until she began associating with white nationalists in recent years, which has led to her rejection by conservative groups such as Young America’s Foundation.
Given CRU’s history — as well as the simple fact that CRU is not an affiliate of the Arizona Federation or CRNC — the federation board moved quickly, offering Zhang the opportunity to resign and save face while asserting that he effectively already had. When he refused, they took matters into their own hands, officially impeaching him so as to leave no doubt about the organization’s stability and leadership.
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As an isolated incident, the drama in Arizona might barely be worth paying attention to. But, observers say, the split is reflective of a broader forces and trends in American politics. In the grown-up, “real world” realm of conservatism, Donald Trump revealed some old and created new divisions in the Republican Party. Those divisions seem to be widening each and every day just over 100 miles from the U of A campus in the state capital of Phoenix, where a collection of Republican legislators are relentlessly relitigating the 2020 election in the hope that Trump will emerge victorious.
Judah Waxelbaum, who served as chairman of the Arizona Federation for three terms before Zhang’s brief ascension and currently serves as Western Regional chair for the CRNC, was a freshman at Arizona State when CRU was first born. Now he’s running for the top College Republicans job in the country: CRNC chairman. He says that the situation in Arizona is not a problem limited to his home state, but one that’s reflective of larger issues in the national organization.
Waxelbaum remembers his first College Republicans meeting and the way the soon-to-be CRU members behaved at it. “They stood in the back of the room and heckled the president the entire meeting. After a few months of this, they finally just up and were like, ‘We’re starting our own club!'” he told National Review. A butterfly flaps its wings. Now the actions of those hecklers and their collegiate posterity — those who intentionally and knowingly have chosen not to associate with the CRNC — may just change the outcome of a CRNC chairmanship race. After Zhang was removed from his position, he was nevertheless admitted into the CRNC state chair Facebook group by Chandler Thornton, who presently serves as CRNC chair and is supporting Southern Regional Chair Courtney Britt — rather than Waxelbaum — in the race to succeed him.
Immediately upon gaining entry to the group, Zhang posted a message denouncing Waxelbaum and the Arizona Federation for removing him from his position, suggesting that “Judah and the federation decided to” “scapegoat” and “impeach” him for the University of Arizona’s exit from the federation. Zhang is at present a member of the University of Arizona CRU board and the organization did announce that the vote to leave the CRNC was unanimous. Still, Zhang proclaimed that “at heart, I am still a College Republican.”
Britt sought to capitalize on the chaos in Arizona, observing in the comments section of Zhang’s post that “there’s a procedure for redress that is probably the best forum to address your concerns” while offering to walk him through the process. At the same time, Britt was denouncing CRU on Twitter as a “far-right group” with ties to racists, sexists, and anti-Semites and blaming Waxelbaum for its founding, saying that “this organization would not exist but for the failed leadership of my opponent,” at once condemning and providing aid to one of CRU’s newest members
She defended her seemingly incongruent actions by telling National Review that she “provided the appropriate process to seek a remedy available to any College Republican who believes their federation constitution has been violated, just as Regional Vice Chairmen should do for anyone in such a circumstance.” Britt also doubled down on castigating Waxelbaum for CRU’s emergence, saying that “leadership requires hard decisions backed up with actions that are often equally, if not harder, to implement, and Judah Waxelbaum’s failure to do that has allowed College Republicans United (CRU), and dangerous voices within the CRNC, to flourish.”
Waxelbaum called this accusation “incredibly misleading,” noting that CRU was founded four months before he so much as ran for a position within the Arizona State College Republicans. He also objected on the basis that it is “inherently anti-semitic” to imply that a Jew is responsible for the existence of an anti-Semitic organization.
Neither Zhang nor Thornton have responded to requests for comment.
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At first glance, all this may seem, at its least significant, like a petty squabble between ambitious young conservatives, and at its most, a vaguely ideological proxy battle. But it raises more important questions that the conservative movement will have to answer in the coming years about not only its youth components, but its larger strategy and composition.
Yes, divisions on policy and approach will need to be sorted through and synthesized — that much is obvious. And in the founding of organizations such as the College Republican Patriot Coalition — a collection of CRU and CRNC chapters that has announced its arrival by declaring that “what Trump has started must be finished” — and Gen Z GOP, which seeks to create a “palatable alternative to the political left,” we see where the battle lines are being drawn.
But just as interesting is the way in which these divisions are being used in internecine power struggles. Who is responsible for what side’s transgressions? In collegiate circles, it’s Waxelbaum vs. Britt. On the national scene, it’s Cheney vs. Stefanik, and every single major GOP primary fight. Chaos may be bad for the party, but it’s also a ladder for those willing and able to use it to their advantage.
Moreover, it’s easy to forget when zooming out on the big picture consequences of turmoil like that which we see in Arizona that these incidents have less grand, but still important effects on the political development of individual students and the effectiveness of conservative campus groups. According to Waxelbaum, a number of dismayed University of Arizona students have already reached out about starting a new Federation-affiliated CRNC chapter on campus. But even if such a thing comes to fruition — Waxelbaum says he intends to have one up and running by the time the new school year starts — it seems likely that the CRU chapter and disunity on campus is likely to confuse, corrupt, and deter some campus conservatives, while sending mixed messages to the rest of campus.
The short-term future of the GOP is still an open question, but less oft-discussed are the myriad ways in which the last six years or so have not only shaped the worldview of the next generation of Republicans, but also taught them how to operate in the political sphere.
In Arizona and on the national stage, we are right now getting a look at why such questions deserve more attention.