Name: Trump's Party, But Worse
Brand: thebulwark.com
SKU: thebulwark-com-98
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Trump's Party, But Worse

preview

JoinSign inShare this postTrump's Party, But Worsemorningshots.thebulwark.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailFeb 15, 2021Share this postTrump's Party, But Worsemorningshots.thebulwark.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailMad respect for the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Donald Trump. Don’t underestimate how much raw political courage that took. Even the ones who aren’t up for re-election face censure, excommunication, and the feces-flinging wrath of the Trumpist flying monkeys.Unfortunately, the seven do not represent what the Republican Party has become.Forty-three Senate Republicans voted to acquit the former president. Trump’s Big Lie, his attempt to overturn the election, and the attack on the Capitol did not cross a red line for them.The vote stands as a pivotal moment for the party Mr. Trump molded into a cult of personality, one likely to leave a deep blemish in the historical record. Now that Republicans have passed up an opportunity to banish him through impeachment, it is not clear when — or how — they might go about transforming their party into something other than a vessel for a semiretired demagogue who was repudiated by a majority of voters. Actually, the Republicans told us who they were. Let’s run the numbers from the last few weeks:This is Donald Trump’s party. But worse.Over the last five years, Republicans have shown willingness to accept — or least ignore — lies, racism, and xenophobia.But now it is a party that is also willing to acquiesce to sedition, violence, extremism, and anti-democratic authoritarianism. Maybe that’s what Lindsey Graham meant when he talked about “Trump-plus.”**Through their inactions on Trump and Greene, Republicans "are normalizing, they are mainstreaming, what counterterrorism experts would say is violent extremism: that it is acceptable to use inflammatory rhetoric and encourage violence to achieve your ends and ... it is acceptable to engage in public life through conspiracy theories," says Elizabeth Neumann, a former assistant secretary for threat prevention in the Department of Homeland Security for Trump who resigned and opposed his reelection. **Acquitted, but not exonerated.Let’s leave aside for a moment the hypocrisy and deep cynicism of McConnell’s post-acquittal floor speech. Trump was guilty, disgraced, and still liable for his crimes. “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,”&nbsp; he said, moments after voting to acquit the ex-president.McConnell is (and always will be) focused on maintaining his own power; and his pretzel logic was appalling. But, there was a flash of real bottled-up frustration there. He was trying to lay down the marker that acquittal did not equal exoneration. Or as Saturday Night Live put it: "I think he’s guilty as hell and the worst person I've ever met, and I hope every city, county and state locks his ass up," said McConnell, played by Beck Bennett. "Ah, God, that felt good. I been holding that inside my neck for four years." On Sunday, Lindsey Graham said that McConnell’s comments were “an outlier” in the GOP, and he’s not wrong. The institutional GOP is anxious to move on, but once again it lacks the will to actually do what it takes to stop Trump, while the party’s base shows every sign of sticking with him. "My friend Richard Burr just made Lara Trump almost the certain nominee for the Senate seat in North Carolina to replace him if she runs,” Graham said, endorsing her candidacy, and declaring that she is the “future of the Republican Party.”&nbsp;&nbsp; FFS.**The Wall Street Journal editorial boardThe Senate failed Saturday to convict Donald Trump on the single House impeachment article of inciting an insurrection, but the 57-43 vote was no vindication. The statements by Senators who voted to acquit make clear that he escaped conviction mainly—perhaps only—because he is no longer President.Seven Republicans joined every Democrat in the most bipartisan conviction vote in history. While short of the 67 votes needed to convict, most Republicans didn’t defend Mr. Trump’s words or actions on Jan. 6 or his attempts to overturn the election. As we’ve written before, Mr. Trump’s behavior was inexcusable and will mar his legacy for all time.Ask yourself: Why would Mike Pence bother lifting his voice in defense of his own life if no one else in his party cares to do so?If you think about it from this perspective, then Pence’s silence isn’t just complicity. It’s another marker of the nihilism that has taken over the Republican party, whereby nothing matters except for Trump and/or owning the libs.And in order to further this project, Republicans see themselves as bound to acquiesce in the face of any evil.So the fight to preserve and strengthen free government invites activity on various fronts with varying emphases. The next couple of years will probably resemble the American Revolutionary War more than D-Day. We don’t know ahead of time where, if anywhere, the big breakthroughs will come. We don’t know where a defensive stand could be crucial. We don’t know where there will be an opportunity for a counteroffensive or a straight-out offensive. Today’s vote to acquit Donald Trump was a disgraceful act of partisan cowardice.Yes, a majority of senators (a total of 57, including 7 Republicans) voted to convict the former president. But the fact that it was the most bipartisan verdict in any impeachment trial of a president cannot disguise the reality that it was an enormous institutional failure. Donald Trump incited an insurrection; the case against him was not refuted; and history will look back upon his acquittal with confusion and shame.The United States Senate let America down.So the only way to view McConnell’s deliberations is that he recognizes clearly the fundamental nature of the threat, he saw stopping the insurrection as part of his legacy, he knows that it is Donald Trump who was solely responsible for it, and yet he still cannot bring himself to vote to convict . . . unless the vote is in private. Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers have settled on the word “hate.” They suggest that hatred of Trump motivates this second impeachment….Of course, it’s ridiculous to say that the House managers are proceeding with this impeachment in the first weeks of the Biden administration for the sheer joy of hammering Donald Trump. But let’s pause over the hatred accusation for a minute.Nicomachean EthicsWhen Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined that phrase [“defining deviancy down”], he observed that conservatives had been “sensitive to downward redefining that weakens societal standards.” Today, however, conservatives who support President Trump gladly accept those ever-lower standards as the proper measure of Trump’s conduct, instead of recognizing that his conduct proves precisely why constitutional self-government requires much more. (10) As the hours dragged on, van der Veen didn’t continue his plodding pace.himhimhimrealThe 57–43 margin wasn’t enough to convict under the Constitution. It wasn’t enough to formally disqualify Trump from ever again seeking office in the United States. But practically? It will do as a solemn and eternal public repudiation of Trump’s betrayal of his oath of office. The Republicans have repeatedly betrayed both Lincoln and the Union. The party whose first president died as a martyr at the hands of an insurrectionist&nbsp;is now controlled by empty, hollow people who rolled their eyes and lazed their way through the trial of a president who was manifestly guilty of inciting an insurrection. [Emma] Green:&nbsp;Metaxas:&nbsp;The media landscape was not what you just described. It was an absolute pile-on. You’d think somebody had clubbed a senator to death or something. I was just scratching my head, trying to make sense of whatever happened, if we even know what happened. There are enough questions that it’s so confusing. They were acting like people were shot.Green:&nbsp;Metaxas:&nbsp;Like this postShare this postTrump's Party, But Worsemorningshots.thebulwark.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailNo posts© 2022 The Bulwark ∙ ∙ &nbsp;is the home for great writingThis site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please or unblock scripts

JoinSign inShare this postTrump's Party, But Worsemorningshots.thebulwark.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailFeb 15, 2021Share this postTrump's Party, But Worsemorningshots.thebulwark.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailMad respect for the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Donald Trump. Don’t underestimate how much raw political courage that took. Even the ones who aren’t up for re-election face censure, excommunication, and the feces-flinging wrath of the Trumpist flying monkeys.Unfortunately, the seven do not represent what the Republican Party has become.Forty-three Senate Republicans...

public

Charlie Sykes

Political analysis and reporting free of tribal prejudices. Sign up for our newsletters here https://plus.thebulwark.com/subscribe

Trump's Party, But Worse

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS