The GOP Warranty Expires

For 230 years, America’s presidential elections have been basic.  When a new president is elected, the outgoing president says “Good luck” and moves out so the new leader can move in.  Indeed, the peaceful transfer of power has not only been basic, but a source of pride to the country for over two centuries.

Then Trump was elected, and the Republican Party bought into the schtick and went full fascist.  There’s no hyperbole to this.  It’s simple textbook definition, and the GOP has checked off every box multiple times, as I wrote here.

And then came the January 6 Insurrection to overthrow democracy and the government.  And the Big Lie of non-existent election fraud.  (Which Republicans conveniently ignored that if there actually was fraud, it would mean their own elections that they won – federal, state and local – were all on fraudulent ballots and should be disqualified, as well.)  And the 64 lawsuits that Republicans filed and lost.  [UPDATE: The only lawsuit Republicans won insignificantly reduced by three days the time Pennsylvania voters had to fix errors on their mail-in ballots.] And details of fake Electors and plans to overturn election results by sending certified votes back to the states.

For two years, cries of “election fraud” have become the GOP slogan, sometimes whining it out even before a race was held.  Refusal to concede a loss became almost the default Republican Party Standard Operating Procedure – or as it’s known in the trade, GOP SOP.  “Election Deniers” wasn’t a description, it has become the Republican brand.  And more and more and more.  The GOP spiraling down into hell.

And remarkably, it got even worse.  Something people would normally not think possible, except that they’ve been watching Trump and the GOP for six years.

On Monday, Hunter Walker of Talking Points Memo reported on almost 500 text messages between 34 Republican elected officials in Congress and Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.  The material had been uncovered by the House Jan. 6 Select Committee.

I noted just three of the texts yesterday.  One from Texas Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) took the election to crazed religious cult heights when he wrote, "Mark, When we lose Trump we lose our Republic. Fight like hell and find a way. We’re with you down here in Texas and refuse to live under a corrupt Marxist dictatorship. Liberty! Babin."

Another from Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) begged that Republicans should follow the theory pushed by Trump lawyer John Eastman to overthrow the government by ignoring the certified results and instead having state legislatures actually change the results.  "Dick Morris is saying State Leg can intervene and declare Trump winner," he wrote, as if it was a rigged beauty pageant. "NC, PA, MI, WI all have GOP Leg."

And most maniacally fascist of all, which seems almost incomprehensible when considering what he was competing with for that honor, was Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC).  Exploding into insane virulence, he told Meadows a few days before Joe Biden was to be sworn in as president that “we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic !!  Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!"

For 230 years, American politics has managed just fine with transferring power without a hiccup.  But to the lunatic Norman – even putting aside his inability to spell “martial law” – an actual, elected Congressman, having the white supremacist, pathological lying, malignant narcissist fascist Trump out of office instead of the moderate Democrat Joe Biden was enough for his head to symbolically explode.  And call for an armed coup.

To be clear, these are only three text messages out of 500.  (You can read the full article here, "A Plot to Overturn an American Election.")  And in fairness, not all of the texts were this unhinged.  Though in equal fairness, some were arguably worse.  Like the one from Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA) who sent a video to Meadows about a conspiracy theory where 50 million identities of U.S. citizen were stolen by Ukraine and it involved a plot with Rumania.  (Honest.)  Actually, Allen defined "crazed religious cults" -- again, not hyperbole -- when he sent another tweet to Meadows to said, in part: ""Our Nation is at war, it is a Spiritual War at the highest level. This is not a war that can be fought conventionally, this is God’s battle."

But to be clear, as well, these few texts were not outliers.  What they expressed was the core of what elected Republican officials -- who swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not undermine it -- were crying out in text messages to the White House Chief of Staff.  Because that’s who today’s Republican Party is.  Because even if it was just 34 elected Republicans who this report covered, there was not – nor has there been for the past two years – any outrage by the rest of the Republican Party in Congress.  It's been near silence.

Just like there was near silence when the Republican party whose leader Trump said the Constitution should be terminated.  And when GOP leader Trump had dinner with violent anti-Semite Kanye West and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.  And when its leader Trump stole classified documents.  Near total silence.  Because that’s who the Republican Party is.

And now, this Insurrectionist fascist GOP even has a razor thin majority in the House and will control committees.  The good news is that they will be unable to accomplish anything for the next two years, because Democrats control the Senate and White House.  And what is likely is that the crazed GOP House will implode and become its own worst enemy, showing the American public even more clearly who they are.

The weird thing is that it’s not certain even the Republican Party knows who they are, other than power hungry fascists.  (Again, this is not hyperbole, but description.  See above.)  There’s nothing they seem to stand for.  They’re almost united against proposals that help the American people, like affordable health care, Social Security, Medicare, vaccines that save lives, paying to improve infrastructure, dramatically lowering the cost of insulin, the civil right of abortion, the civil right of marriage for all, protecting children from being massacred by guns – issues that the vast majority of Americans almost overwhelmingly support.  They're even now against the two bedrocks of the GOP that defined the party:  "Small Government" and "Government Staying Out of Your Lives," since the national debt skyrockets whenever Republicans are in power, and Republican government aggressively works to intrude itself into the most-personal and sacred intimacies of private lives, like childbirth and who you love, as long as such things are against GOP values -- whatever those are.

We have reached the point where today's Republican Party has lost its way, its agenda and its meaning.  It's bordering on impossible to know what today's GOP stands for, other than having power at all costs.

It’s even not certain if Republicans are delusional enough to truly believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen (though not their own races…), or if they’ve convinced themselves of the Big Lie after having repeated it so often, or if it’s just a cynical mad-power grab.  I suspect it’s a mixture of all the above.

But this is who today’s Republican Party is.  They will shout and moan and weep and rend their garments and call Democrats and liberals “socialists” and Commies, as they have done for 75 years despite the U.S. not becoming Communist, and want to investigate the laptop computer of the president’s private citizen son (while blissfully ignoring the previous Republican president’s daughter – who was an official advisor – getting 41 trademarks from China, and his son-in-law – who was one of his top advisors – just receiving $2 billion from Saudi Arabia, let alone hundreds of millions from them for his family company while still in office) and want to investigate pretty much anyone they can identify in the Biden Administration because they are in a religious fervor.  And fill the air with empty "What about...?  What about...?  What about..."  (Generally starting with "...Hillary's emails?  Lock her up!!")  It's all very Shakespearean: a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Because this is who today’s Republican Party is.

And this is only just the very surface, the loose topsoil.  Pieces of gravel caught in your shoe.  The full muck goes much deeper, down-down-down to the center of the earth, and beyond, through to China.  (Almost literally...) 

And if the last six years and Insurrection weren’t convincing enough, the almost 500 text messages from elected Republicans to Trump’s Chief of Staff, should help clarify things.  Even if “Marshall Law!!” was misspelled.  Because it’s author is the only one confused.

This is who today's Republican Party is.  And will be for the foreseeable future.

For 230 years, America’s presidential elections have been basic.  When a new president is elected, the outgoing president says “Good luck” and moves out so the new leader can move in.  The peaceful transfer of power has not only been basic, but a source of pride to the country for over two centuries.

Then Trump was elected, and the Republican Party bought into the schtick and went full fascist.