Watching the GOP Clown Derby unfold it looks like Donald Trump’s endorsement of Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House of Representatives is helping him about as much as it helped Trump’s far-right troupe of MAGA extremists in the midterms – not at all. The dysfunction and chaos occurring yesterday, today, and for the foreseeable future from Republicans on the House floor while unprecedented for the last one hundred years, was certainly predictable. The groundwork was laid long ago when Republicans decided to nominate and emulate the divider-in-chief and head bomb thrower himself, Trump. The antithesis of calmness and stability, good governance, or steady leadership Trump has modeled for years to the rebel faction now threatening to blow up the Republican Party. This extreme faction is now driving the GOP Trump Train and holding it hostage as it barrels toward the edge of the cliff.
Kevin McCarthy and others in his traditional conservative bunch have no one to blame for their current political predicament other than themselves. They had the opportunity to exhibit leadership and reject and disavow Trump after he had lost the election and organized and unleashed a coup and insurrection on the government of the United States of America. It was the clean break opportunity they had been looking for. And for a brief minute, McCarthy and a few others had offered words of condemnation. But in acts of shameful cowardice, they came crawling back, begging for forgiveness. Maybe this is why some in his party say they can’t trust him because he briefly broke ranks and stood up to Trump about the Jan. 6th Capitol attack, before quickly reversing course. Regardless of the reasons for some members’ loss of confidence in the would-be-Speaker, this festering ground of MAGA extremism was polluted long ago laying the groundwork for the outgrowth of this bumper crop of toxic avengers.
What do you think would happen to your party when you fail to do what’s right and hold Trump and his insurrectionist co-conspirators accountable? What kind of example and path forward would that failure demonstrate for a group of insurgent new and not-so-new lawmakers more intent on tearing down democracy and gumming up the functioning of government? It was a big green light at the drag way, pedal to the metal for the crazies and clowns.
Rewind back to a sad chapter in the devolution and erosion of the once-stable GOP. It was unprecedented what happened following the Presidential election of November 2020. No President in American history had flatly refused to accept the results of a free and fair election. Could you imagine if a sitting Democrat President lost their election, lied to Americans about the results, and actively schemed to stay in power? If that hypothetical President had done just one of the things that Donald Trump did immediately following the 2020 election and in the weeks following, Republicans would have been out for blood, taken to the streets, guns-a-blazing, with their hair on fire. But it was a Republican President who did it instead. It was Donald Trump who got a radical element of his party to believe his monumental fraud and The Big Lie enough to violently storm the US Capitol to stop official proceedings, threaten the life of Vice President Pence (life-long Republican and conservative) and other lawmakers, and beat, maim, and kill police officers. Then in the aftermath of Jan 6th, he managed to convince a majority of his Party to think it was at worst not that big of a deal and at best a bold effort by a brave bulwark of patriotic Americans just trying to “stop the steal”. Shockingly, most of the Party seemed just fine with it and it has been hard to find more than a small handful of GOP lawmakers willing to speak out against what Dear Leader tried to pull off. As most of us know, based on facts and reality, it was Trump who was blatantly trying to steal the 2020 election and in fact, came very close to succeeding.
The unprecedented work of the January 6th committee has concluded its important work and laid out its findings in stark terms, recommending criminal indictments on several accounts for the twice-impeached, disgraced, former President Trump. The findings are comprised of irrefutable facts and testimony from other Republicans and former White House officials. They are the following:
-He knew he had lost the election, he had been told by numerous advisors and lawmakers and could see the results for himself. He chose to ignore those results and actively tried to overturn them.
-He blatantly attempted to get legally cast votes thrown out in several states, Georgia most infamously, and have fake slates of electors put in place to reverse the results in several key battleground states. He actively tried to replace the head of the Justice Department with someone who would rubber-stamp and send out a false legal memo asserting to various state election officials that they could not and should not trust their own results. This memo had no basis whatsoever.
-In a last-ditch effort he actively organized and assembled an armed mob on January 6th to violently intimidate lawmakers and interfere with the official counting of the state’s electoral votes.
-Then as the violent mob descended on the House of Congress, he watched with glee, reveling in the violence being perpetrated on police officers and the ransacking of the Capitol. He did nothing for hours, as everyone around him begged and pleaded for him to take action, to call off the mob & call for peace. But we all know now, that a peaceful transition of power was never part of his plan. He never planned to accept the results of the election, unless they showed he had won. He orchestrated the insurrection in plain sight for the whole world to see. We know because he told us in his own words. We know because of video and telephone recordings and hundreds of hours of sworn testimony from members of his own Party and his staff.
The official criminal referrals to the Department of Justice are:
1. Obstruction of an Official Proceeding.
2. Conspiracy to defraud the United States.
3. Conspiracy to make a false statement.
4. “Incite”, “Assist”, or “Aid and Comfort” an insurrection.
The Justice Department has been conducting its own investigation which will only be bolstered by the facts, findings, and recommendations from the January 6th Committee. Their final list of crimes may differ slightly in wording or quantity, but rest assured, they will be bringing indictments very soon against the twice-impeached, disgraced, former President. So whatever hand-wringing people are doing about it being unprecedented to prosecute a former President criminally and that it will be too divisive, they should begin to disabuse themselves of that notion. Everything Donald Trump has done in his public and political life has been divisive so spare me the crocodile tears. It was his words and deeds that got us to this place. As soon as he announced he was running for President in 2015 he began trying to burn and tear down the whole place. And yes, it would be unprecedented for him to be indicted and convicted but everything that Trump did in his attempt to overthrow democracy and conduct a coup of our government was unprecedented. So suck it up buttercups, none of this is easy or pleasant. It’s messy in fact, but it is necessary. Defending democracy usually is. Yes, we are divided, but sweeping things under the rug and giving the next political con artist a green light to try the same thing again will not strengthen our country. It would further weaken and strip bare our defenses. That cannot happen. He must be held accountable along with anyone else aiding in the seditious conspiracy.
Trump and the era of elevated discord he unleashed is a black eye on American history and the sooner he is held accountable for his criminal and seditious acts the sooner we can move on with the people’s business. The sooner he faces justice the sooner the message is sent to other copycats and aspiring cheaters, authoritarians, and charlatans that American democracy is not a playground for your fascist and autocratic pursuits.
When justice has been rendered and order and stability restored to our democracy, that is when we begin the process of healing and reconciliation. We cannot come together as a country if we do not collectively hold those trying to tear us apart accountable. If someone tried to steal your truck out of the driveway, ran over and killed your dog in the process, then crashed into a ditch severely damaging it, then ran off getting away with his crime for a bit, would you be ok with that? I mean you got your truck back, right? He didn’t actually succeed in getting away with your property. BS, you would be angry and sad that your dog died, adversely affected overall, and pissed off that you had to pay to get your truck fixed, and sure enough you would want the authorities to apprehend the crook and bring him to justice. Trump tried to steal our democracy in plain view, it was severely damaged in the process, and people did actually die. And it could have been far worse. Naturally, he should be held accountable.
As for Trump apologists in congress who are whining and complaining about who got to be on the Jan 6 committee, etc, and how the sausage got made, at the end of the day they can’t deny the facts coming out the other end of the factory. You will not see them trying to substantively dispute any of the facts or the testimony. They were some of the biggest cowards of all, unwilling to give their testimony under oath as to what their roles were in the effort to overturn the election. All they can do and will continue to do going into next year is yell and stomp their feet about nothing, trying to distract and divert our attention away from the reality of what happened. All they have is smoke and mirrors and loud-mouthed posturing. Even though some of them are at odds with each other today, the Kevin McCarthys, the Jim Jordans, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Gosars, and the Matt Goetzes of the GOP haven’t learned anything after Trump’s disastrous showing and stunning GOP underperformance in the midterms. Get your popcorn out because the coming session of Congress in the new year will be an unprecedented MAGA grievance meltdown and a carnival clown show of gigantic proportions. That’s if the session ever does open up. Warning, there may be a popcorn shortage by the time this battle for Speaker of the House concludes.