The Ghost of GOP Past

I found an article that I had begun writing back in March, but put aside because other news kept cropping up.  And then more news.  Until eventually it became buried and out of date, and I forgot about it.

But coming across it yesterday, the depth of it being out of date was almost quaint, given how madly the Republican Party has spiraled out of control the past three months – and more since the Midterms and then since Herschel Walker lost, with the party slowly, surreptitiously hinting at breaking with Trump – not because of his insane, white-supremacist, anti-Semitic policies, but because he’s being seen as a “loser.”  Yet at quaintly out of date as the article is now, it even still has overlaps to current news.

Here's how it began --

“The Republican Party spins downward so fast these days, it’s difficult to keep track of past transgressions, and so they get buried until the new pile of junk getting dumped every day – even though in ordinary times such things would be the unforgettable headline for months.

“Trump praising Putin, Mike Pompeo praising Putin, Tucker Carlson defending Putin, Marjorie Taylor Greene addressing a white supremacist conference last week, Lauren Boebert heckling the U.S. President talking about his dead child at the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, Fox “News” claiming that DOJ lawyer John Durham exposed Hillary Clinton’s hacking crimes only to have Durham himself explain he did no such thing, both Democratic and Republican state senators in Arizona voting yesterday to censure Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers after she made ‘violent and discriminatory comments’ at a white supremacist conference and also attack Ukraine President Zelensky on social media, and on and on and on and on and on.  And on and on and on.  And on.

“So, all this morass just covers up the other garbage, and it gets pushed aside for the latest.

“There so much of this.  It goes back six years through the Trump years, when – given his fascist attempts to overthrow democracy and 16,000+ documented lies – it almost seems quaint that he called Mexican “rapists,” had the tape released with him laughing about grabbing women by the ‘p*ssy’, asked Russia to hack computers to find his election opponent’s emails and oh-so much more.  And that’s before he was even elected.”

And that’s from March.  Nine months ago!

One would think that all that alone would be enough to define a party and describe its decent into the fascist part of hell.  But the Republican Party, being who they are, just can’t help doubling down and tripling down and quadrupling it.

After all, not only “since then” but just in the “recently” category” there’s the united defense of Trump when a legal search warrant of his home turned up that he stole classified document.  The refusal to criticize Trump by name when he had violent anti-Semite Kenya West and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes to his home for dinner.  The near-total refusal to criticize Trump by name even when he called for terminating the U.S. Constitution. The near-total silence by Republicans when Kenya West said he liked Hitler.  All the extremist candidates they ran during the Mid-terms, pretty much all of who lost.  Their near-crazed support of the woefully inept Herschel Walker.  Would-be House Speaker Keven McCarthy insisting when (or if) he takes control there would be investigations into people like private citizens Hunter Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci, along with Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, along with possible impeachments of President Biden and Vice President Harris.  Threatening to not raise the credit limit, thereby putting the country in financial chaos.  Threatening to not pass a funding bill and shut down the government. Slamming Britney Griner for daring to be released from a Russian prison sentence of nine years for under a gram of cannabis oil.  And…and…on and on and on it goes like an out-of-control merry-go-round that’s crashed off its axis.

And when I step back from all this, what sticks most is remembering that the National Republican Party called the January 6 Insurrection to overthrow the government and democracy "Legitimate Political Discourse."  All they've done since them for the past two years is try to live deep down to that empty standard.

It seems likely that the next two years will be pretty awful.  But given how poorly the public responded to this GOP extremist insanity in the Midterms, and the party is now taking it to a new, more destructive level, the biggest disaster appears to be headed by the Republican Party.