The Man who Killed Republican Politicking
Once Senator Mitch McConnell staked out the politically uncompromising GOP opposition to ‘everything’ Democrats proffered, during the Obama administration, the redline was drawn. Slowly but surely, the so-called moderate Republicans like; Susan Collins, Rob Portman, and John Thune have repeatedly torn their knickers on the fence. Collins, for example, agreed to have Trump testify in his first impeachment hearing and condemned his actions but eventually voted to acquit him. In a USA Today article published in February of 2020, Collins agreed the essentials of the case were true: Collins also acknowledged, the key facts in the case were undisputed, denouncing the call Trump made to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as “improper and in very poor judgment.” Teasing the Democrats with the sweet taste of integrity, then voting not to convict, using the flimsy logic of, “It was wrong for him to ask a foreign government to investigate a political rival,” Collins continued, [but] “I do not believe that the House has met its burden of showing that the president’s conduct, however flawed, warrants the extreme step of immediate removal from office.”
A number of the members of the Republican caucus have either retired or acquiesced to the stop government wing from helping working people at all costs. The obvious example is no Republican voted for the Covid Relief package, but all voted for a 2 trillion dollar tax cut for the rich—holding onto trickle-down with their cold dead hands. The once-loyal Republican opposition has been reduced to zealots and history deniers. If only it were a secluded few that were pushing America into the abyss but the aura of blind fear or quitting is a result of being terrorized by the base of the party. Racists, fascists, and supremacists are demanding obedience to their former leader, Trump, and the rest are running from the shadows of their moral corruption.
Just today after the world witnessed the greatest threat to Democracy since the Civil War, Republicans voted to dismiss any attempts at a bilateral commission to investigate the insurrection. Yet, Mitch McConnell and his party are seeking to place the onus on Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats for a Republican-led terror attack on the Capitol; condoned by Donald Trump. Speaker Pelosi sought to make the process as apolitical as possible. Agreeing to all the requests the GOP asked; among those were requests for equal subpoena power and equal representation on the proposed commission. I suspect the Republicans expected Ms. Pelosi to balk, giving them the talking point of non-cooperation.
Abject politicization of grievance and race has emerged as the preeminent GOP political strategy since the Clinton administration. If you take the time to examine the facts, birtherism, the Tea Party, Russian collusion, and the Big Lie have been Republican-inspired tropes to appeal to the worst of us. The Republican Party has hitched their elephant to a circus wagon and wonder why the clowns have so much power. This is where the cynics say all politicians lie; there may be some truth to that but when the beforementioned Bill Clinton told us he did not have sex with that woman, his VP refused to run with Clinton’s support but when Donald Trump’s VP was threatened with hanging at the hands of Trump supporters at the Capitol, Mike Pence chose to support the Big Lie, “Many of the most troubling voting irregularities took place in states that set aside laws enacted by state legislatures in favor of sweeping changes ordered by governors, secretaries of state, and courts,” Pence said.
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