Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

There Are No Good Republicans

 Jon Chait lays out the fundamental problem with the GOP's two-step surrounding Donald Trump. Mainstream Republicans want you to believe that Trump does not represent a threat to American democracy because he failed in his attempted coup. This, of course, ignores the fact that he attempted a coup. 

Ever since he shambled onto the scene in his golden escalator, the GOP have tended to ignore Trumpist politics until they can no longer do so. When a Charlottesville happens or a Zelenskyy phone call or injecting bleach into your veins or an actual attack on the Capitol, they momentarily decry what he is doing...then retreat into supporting him.

The current hijacking of the debt ceiling - supported by people like Mitt Romney - is a good example of the Republican nihilism. Sure, posture on it, like everyone does. But refuse to allow it to be raised? Risk default? Why the fuck does that? 

Maybe a party whose 2020 platform was simply to venerate the corpulent god-king, the Caudillo El Mar A-Lago. 

I don't think we are headed to authoritarianism. But I don't think democracy is safe in this country. 

It would be nice if Merrick Garland got off his ass and prosecuted Trump for the crimes we already know he has committed - tax fraud, certainly, campaign finance violations, too - so that Trump has to run from a jail cell, a sort of Bizarro World Eugene V. Debs.

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