How Trump’s intimidation tactics have reshaped the Republican Party

When U.S. congressman Tom Rice voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol in January 2021, it was the beginning of the end of his political career.

Angry calls and emails – including three death threats – flooded the South Carolina Republican's office. The next year, as Rice ran for a sixth term, a sheriff's deputy often guarded him at public events. Trump backed Rice's foe in the party's primary election. At a rally, the ex-president warned voters that the congressman "partnered with the Democrats to stab the Republican Party and, frankly, to stab our country in the back."

Rice got crushed in the primary. Today, the one-time conservative darling, a small-government fiscal hawk, is shunned by former allies and some old friends, he told Reuters. He feels betrayed by fellow Republicans who, "rather than upholding their oath and defending the Constitution, decided their position and their power was worth more."

In cementing his third-straight Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump and his staunchest followers have used menace and harassment to fundamentally reshape the party of Reagan, purging officials and activists seen as insufficiently loyal to Trump and his Make America Great Again agenda. Trump has imposed this fealty at every level of the party, from minor state and local officials to members of Congress, cabinet secretaries and rivals for the presidency, calling for revenge on those who resist his demands, vote against his interests or cross his allies.

Since launching his Truth Social media platform in early 2022, Trump has posted more than 600 attacks on fellow Republicans, singling out more than 100 party officials, activists and right-leaning media figures for