'Crude' Republican infighting on 'The Apprentice' shows how painfully 'degraded' the GOP is: conservative

Although Donald Trump is no longer hosting “The Apprentice” — the television show that made the real estate mogul a reality TV star back in 2004 — he left his mark on the long-running program. Conservative Daily Beast opinion writer Matt Lewis weighs in on the show’s new season in an op-ed published on December 9, stressing that it underscores the nasty infighting that is plaguing the Republican Party of late 2021.

Lewis is a conservative of the Never Trump variety. Although he has often attacked liberals and progressives in his Beast column, Lewis has been vehemently critical of Trump and the MAGA movement — which he believes has been toxic for the GOP and conservatism. And Lewis essentially describes the new season of “The Apprentice” as a battle between Republicans who are right-wing but not far-right, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and far-right MAGA extremists such as Arizona State Rep. Wendy Rogers.

Lewis notes that so far this season, Crenshaw has slammed far-right MAGA figures like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Rep. Paul Gosar of Texas and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida as “grifters” and “performance artists” — while Rogers has called for Crenshaw and Mace to be banished from the GOP for being insufficiently MAGA.

“This is the kind of stuff that would make Omarosa blush, but we’re just getting started,” Lewis comments. “Fan favorite and QAnon-friendly lawyer Lin Wood also continued his attacks on Tucker Carlson and Dan Bongino, while taking additional shots at Sean Hannity, Charlie Kirk and Seb Gorka…. This all comes on the heels of the hate-triangle between Republican Reps. Boebert, Greene, and Mace — and as Donald Trump stirs up internal GOP dissension in Georgia.”

All this Republican infighting, according to Lewis, shows how “degraded” the GOP has become.

“The Republican-on-Republican action just keeps coming within the party that, amazingly, is poised to take control of Congress next year,” Lewis writes. “And thanks to Trump, even the ostensibly virtuous combatants like Mace must resort to insult comedy — like calling Greene batshit crazy and saying ‘bless her fucking heart’ to avoid becoming roadkill. But what does this say about the GOP’s degraded culture? The terms of the debate have already been decided, and they are decidedly crude. The contestants may crack wise, but this is a barrel of crabs, not a barrel of laughs.”