MAGA purges the RNC “The RNC is entering the 2024 election with a third of the Democratic National Committee’s reserves,” writes David Graham in The Atlantic. Graham noted last month that the Republican National Committee has ceased functioning as a political party. Today, it operates as another arm of the Trump Organization, now with loyalist Michael Whatley, immediate past chair of the North Carolina GOP installed as chair, and Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that “with the political equivalent of shock and awe,” Team Trump has begun a purge of the RNC staff. “The senior leadership has been almost entirely replaced or reassigned, while dozens of lower-ranking officials including state directors were either fired or told to reapply for their jobs.” The RNC is now eating its own. Given the RNC’s years of electoral losses post-2016, clearing out the dead wood makes sense, Graham writes, and presidential nominees typically take control of the party. Whether putting toadies in charge will change the RNC’s trajectory is questionable: Truth be told, Trump can’t really distance himself from the recent mismanagement. The deposed chair, Ronna McDaniel, was Trump’s pick in 2017, and his main complaint about her is that she was insufficiently compliant. If Trump just wants more of the same, that’s bad news for the party. Trump critics within the GOP also fear that he intends to use the party coffers as a personal defense fund, underwriting his substantial legal bills. Last week, the committee pointedly rejected…