The Fairness Doctrine and the Voting Rights Act are two of those things Republicans killed, insisting they were no longer needed, before going on to prove precisely why theyâre needed.
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Macro, when it was minimal broadcasters & they needed permission from the FCC, it was a bit easier to do. I blame Reagan for getting rid of it. When we, as a country, cannot agree on facts, it makes life difficult. There has to be some commonality to be a country. As the poll points out, the USA has about a third of the population believing the equivalent of the National Enquire.
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âBadasses in Their Own Rightâ: Meet the Freshwomen of Congress
Weâll soon see the most women ever in the House of Representatives, including the largest number of female Republicans. And the new members have a lot to say.
W hen the 117th Congress is sworn in on Sunday, it will have more womenâand more women of colorâthan any Congress in history. There will be the most-ever Native American women serving, as well as the first group of Korean-born congresswomen and even the first Iranian American member of any gender. And those records are, in no small part, because of the success of Republican women.
Donald Trump might have been voted out of the Oval Office in November, but the GOP made significant gains on Capitol Hill, narrowing Democratsâ House majority to the slimmest margin in decades. Most of the candidates who flipped seats from blue to red were women. Twenty-nine Republican women will serve in the new House of Representatives, still well behind the 89 Democratic women but four more than the GOPâs previous record of 25 women in 2005. (The only newly elected woman in the Senate is former Rep. Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming.)
Although their party largely rejects any notion of âidentity politics,â almost all of the newly elected GOP congresswomen told POLITICO theyâre proud to be among the largest and most diverse class of female freshmen the Republican Party has ever seen. Some, like Mary Miller of Illinois, said they see their role as (literally) changing the face of the Republican Party. Others cited the so-called Squad of Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib as an inspirationânot because they see that group, all of whom were elected in 2018, as ideological compatriots, but rather because they want to prove that women can advocate just as passionately for the other side. More than one mentioned âsocialismâ as a motivating factor for their run for Congress, including Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), whose parents fled the Cuban Revolution. âI lived the American dream,â she said. âI need to make sure that my children live the same dream.â
Congresswomen-elect of both parties suggested that the circumstances of the momentâa once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, a likely divided Congress and a record number of women on Capitol Hillâmight lend itself to more bipartisanship. Deborah Ross, a North Carolina Democrat, said that narrow margins in the House and Senate create âthe opportunity for people to come togetherâ because members see âan opportunity to be the difference-maker.â Yvette Herrell, a New Mexico Republican, agreed. âThe expectation of that line in the sandâwe need to move past it,â she said. âThe only people that hurts are the American people.â Nikema Williams, a Georgia Democrat, echoed Herrell: âAmericans are hurting. And itâs not Democratic Americans or Republican Americans; theyâre all hurting.â
But not everyone is interested in moderation or compromise. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a Black Lives Matter organizer from St. Louis, spoke of working with a small but growing band of âunapologetic activistsâ who will work together to âapply pressureâ on even their own party âto push our agenda.â On the other side of the spectrum, Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) made clear that, compared to the effort spent pursuing middle-ground measures, âIâm going to fight even harder to make sure this progressive socialist movement ends this term, never to be discussed again.â And Miller reiterated as much, saying optimistically, that in lieu of advancing legislation, the Republican Party ought to âcome up with a plan for when in two years we do take the House.â
Whether or not these new members are able to make an institution long plagued by polarization and gridlock govern functionally again remains to be seen. But what we do know is that these women have arrived in Washington, and theyâre ready to get to work.
The article goes into each of them in detail; the way itâs broken up, itâs hard to post them all here, so I recommend checking it out.
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These former defense secretaries ask for a peaceful transfer of power in this Opinion piece.
Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld are the 10 living former U.S. secretaries of defense.
As former secretaries of defense, we hold a common view of the solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Department. Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party.
American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy. With one singular and tragic exception that cost the lives of more Americans than all of our other wars combined, the United States has had an unbroken record of such transitions since 1789, including in times of partisan strife, war, epidemics and economic depression. This year should be no exception.
Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.
As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, âthereâs no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.â Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.
Transitions, which all of us have experienced, are a crucial part of the successful transfer of power. They often occur at times of international uncertainty about U.S. national security policy and posture. They can be a moment when the nation is vulnerable to actions by adversaries seeking to take advantage of the situation.
Given these factors, particularly at a time when U.S. forces are engaged in active operations around the world, it is all the more imperative that the transition at the Defense Department be carried out fully, cooperatively and transparently. Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates â political appointees, officers and civil servants â are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.
We call upon them, in the strongest terms, to do as so many generations of Americans have done before them. This final action is in keeping with the highest traditions and professionalism of the U.S. armed forces, and the history of democratic transition in our great country.
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NYTimes
Trumpâs Georgia Call Is Another Reason to Impeach Him https://nyti.ms/3rTbozW
The emergence of an audio recording of President Trump pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to overturn the results of the election is a harrowing moment in the history of our democracy. And though the number of his days in office is dwindling, the only appropriate response is to impeach Mr. Trump. Again.
Whether he acknowledges it or not, President Trump is leaving the White House on Jan. 20 â but right now, there is nothing stopping him from running in 2024. That is a terrifying prospect, because the way he has conducted himself over the past two months, wielding the power of the presidency to try to steal another term in office, has threatened one of our republicâs most essential traditions: the peaceful transfer of power.
Fortunately, our founders anticipated we would face a moment like this, which is one reason Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution entrusts Congress with the power not only to remove a president but also to prevent him or her from ever holding elected office again. Mr. Trumpâs conduct over the past two months has left our legislators with no choice but to use it. That impeachment inquiry would take time, far more than Mr. Trump has left in office. But it would be well worth it.
Since the election was called in favor of President-elect Joe Biden, Mr. Trump has been relentlessly fomenting doubts about its legitimacy â even as many federal and state courts, including ones whose judges were appointed by Mr. Trump himself, have ruled against his claims. He has reportedly inquired about the idea of enlisting the help of the military to keep him in power.
Most recently, on the phone with Brad Raffensperger, Georgiaâs secretary of state, he said, âI just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.â He added: âWe won this state,â even though he didnât. In a democracy, you donât find votes. You count them. Most strikingly, Mr. Trump threatened the Georgia officials with criminal prosecution if they didnât comply, saying leaving the vote counts intact would be a âbig risk.â
This kind of threat may sound familiar, because an eerily similar abuse of power led to Mr. Trumpâs impeachment just over a year ago. Senator Susan Collins of Maine explained her vote to acquit him by saying she thought he had learned âa pretty big lesson.â Clearly, Mr. Trump learned a different lesson â that he was above the law. Itâs just as William Davie from North Carolina, discussing the position of the presidency at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, predicted: A president who viewed himself to be unimpeachable, he said in 1787, would âspare no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected.â
Itâs time for Congress, once and for all, to put an end to this.
No one wants to put the country through the turmoil of another impeachment. But we also canât afford to look the other way â for several reasons.
For one, we must establish a precedent that a president who tries to cheat his way to re-election will be held accountable. Sure, this attempt may not have succeeded, but a failed coup should itself be alarming enough. And who is to say there wonât be a closer election in the future, with a more competent authoritarian candidate â whose party also has control of the House of Representatives? We need to make sure that Congress has ensured that candidates cannot strong-arm their way into re-election.
We also need to set a precedent that a lame duck president can still be held accountable. If an incumbent, say, threatened to nuke Iran unless the Electoral College sided with him, we would want to have a mechanism by which we could remove him from office. In our Constitution, impeachment is that mechanism, but it is worthless if we never use it.
And last, we cannot risk Mr. Trumpâs becoming president again â or for that matter, even running again with a chance of winning. This isnât a point about ideology; itâs a reflection of the fact that our system may not be able to withstand this lawless man returning to the highest office in the land. Emboldened by our failure to hold him accountable for abusing his power in his first term, who knows what he would do in a nonconsecutive second term? The damage to our institutions from his first four years in office will take generations to undo. Our democracy might not be able to handle another four.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, was able to protect Mr. Trump the last time â no doubt because he was afraid of what a truly rigorous trial might show. But he may no longer be able to do so. For one thing, Mr. Trump will soon lack the power of the presidency to dole out favors and punish his enemies. For another, the Senate composition will be different. Already, Democrats have flipped seats in Arizona and Colorado. Republicans who voted to acquit him, like Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, have shown signs they are finally willing to stand up to him.
And Georgians will go to the polls to decide who will represent them in the Senate. Mr. Trumpâs preferred senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, would no doubt try to block an inquiry into his misdeeds. But if these senators lose their seats, a full and robust inquiry in the Senate could be the result, with Chuck Schumer as majority leader.
In 2008, a young member of the Judiciary Committee said, âThe business of high crimes and misdemeanors goes to the question of whether or not the person serving as president of the United States put their own interests, their personal interests, ahead of public service.â That congressmanâs name was Mike Pence â and he was exactly right.
We need to convict President Trump and make sure he can never call the White House home again.
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Conservative writer George F. Will says Sen Cruz (R-TX) and Sen Hawley (R-MO) are ââŚare its (The Constitutionâs) most dangerous domestic enemies.â
On a conference call last Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told his caucus that, in his 36 Senate years, he has twice cast votes to take the nation to war and once to remove a president, but that the vote he will cast this Wednesday to certify Joe Bidenâs electoral college victory will be the most important of his career. McConnell (R-Ky.) understands the recklessness of congressional Republicans who are fueling the doubts of a large majority of Republicans about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
The day before McConnellâs somber statement, Missouriâs freshman Republican senator, Josh Hawley, announced that on Wednesday, 14 days before Biden will be inaugurated, he will challenge the validity of Bidenâs election. Hawleyâs conscience regarding electoral proprieties compels him to stroke this erogenous zone of the GOPâs 2024 presidential nominating electorate.
Hawleyâs stance quickly elicited panicky emulation from Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, another 2024 aspirant. Cruz led 10 other senators and senators-elect in a statement that presents their pandering to what terrifies them (their Trumpkin voters) as a judicious determination to assess the âunprecedented allegationsâ of voting improprieties, âallegationsâ exceeding âany in our lifetimes.â
So, allegations in sufficient quantity, although of uniformly risible quality, validate senatorial grandstanding that is designed to deepen todayâs widespread delusions and resentments. While Hawley et al. were presenting their last-ditch devotion to President Trump as devotion to electoral integrity, Trump was heard on tape browbeating noncompliant Georgia election officials to âfindâ thousands of votes for him. Awkward.
Never mind. Hawley â has there ever been such a high ratio of ambition to accomplishment? â and Cruz have already nimbly begun to monetize their high-mindedness through fundraising appeals.
For many years, some people insisted that a vast conspiracy, not a lone gunman, masterminded the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy near the grassy knoll in Dallasâs Dealey Plaza. To these people, the complete absence of evidence proved the conspiracyâs sophistication. They were demented. Todayâs senatorial Grassy Knollers â Hawley, with Cruz and others panting to catch up â are worse. They are cynical.
They know that every one of the almost 60 Trump challenges to the election has been rebuffed in state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, involving more than 90 judges, nominated by presidents of both parties. But for scores of millions of mesmerized Trump Republicans, who think the absence of evidence is the most sinister evidence, this proves that the courts, too, are tentacles of the âdeep state.â Hawley and Cruz, both of whom clerked for chief justices of the Supreme Court, hope to be wafted into the White House by gusts of such paranoia.
As does Vice President Pence, who says about Hawley et al.: Me, too. To fathom Penceâs canine devotion to Trump, watch a video from June 7, 2018. Seated next to Trump in a meeting, Pence saw Trump take his water bottle off the table and place it on the floor. So, Pence did likewise. Google the 22-second video. It is a sufficient Pence biography.
Republican Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) obliquely but scaldingly said of Hawley: âAdults donât point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.â Americaâs three-party system â Democrats, Hawley-Cruz Republicans, and McConnell-Sasse Republicans â will continue to take shape on Wednesday. Watch how many of these Republican senators who might be seeking reelection in 2022 have the spine to side with the adults against Hawley-Cruz et al. and the Grassy Knollers among their constituents: John Boozman, Richard Burr, Mike Crapo,Charles E. Grassley, John Hoeven, Mike Lee, Jerry Moran, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Rob Portman, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Richard C. Shelby, John Thune, Todd C. Young. By aligning with Cruz, four â Ron Johnson, John Neely Kennedy, James Lankford and Kelly Loeffler â have reserved their seats at the childrenâs table.
Hawley, Cruz and company have perhaps rescued Biden from becoming the first president in 32 years to begin his presidency without his party controlling both houses of Congress. On Tuesday, Georgians will decide control of the Senate. While they have been watching Republican attempts to delegitimize Bidenâs election ( two recounts have confirmed that Georgians favor Biden), Republicans were telling them: a) elections in the worldâs oldest constitutional democracy, and especially in Georgia, are rigged, but b) the nationâs fate depends on their turning out for Tuesdayâs (presumptively) sham run-off Senate elections, lest c) Democrats take control of the Senate and behave badly.
Be that as it may, on Wednesday, the members of the Hawley-Cruz cohort will violate the oath of office in which they swore to defend the Constitution from enemies âforeign and domestic.â They are its most dangerous domestic enemies.
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If you had ever told me, that one day, I would agree with George Will ⌠
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Donald Trumpâs Final Days
The best outcome would be for him to resign to spare the U.S. another impeachment fight.
By The Editorial Board
The lodestar of these columns is the U.S. Constitution. The document is the durable foundation protecting liberty, and this week it showed its virtue again. Despite being displaced for a time by a mob, Congress returned the same day to ratify the Electoral College vote and Joe Bidenâs election. Congratulations to the President-elect, who will be inaugurated as the Constitution stipulates at noon on Jan. 20.
***
That still leaves Wednesdayâs disgrace and what to do about the 13 days left in Donald Trumpâs presidential term. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are demanding that Mr. Trump be removed from office immediatelyâeither by the Cabinet under the 25th Amendment or new articles of impeachment. Thereâs partisan animus at work here, but Mr. Trumpâs actions on Wednesday do raise constitutional questions that arenât casually dismissed.
In concise summary, on Wednesday the leader of the executive branch incited a crowd to march on the legislative branch. The express goal was to demand that Congress and Vice President Mike Pence reject electors from enough states to deny Mr. Biden an Electoral College victory. When some in the crowd turned violent and occupied the Capitol, the President caviled and declined for far too long to call them off. When he did speak, he hedged his plea with election complaint.
This was an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election. It was also an assault on the legislature from an executive sworn to uphold the laws of the United States. This goes beyond merely refusing to concede defeat. In our view it crosses a constitutional line that Mr. Trump hasnât previously crossed. It is impeachable.
Mr. Trumpâs many opponents are crowing in satisfaction that their predictions have been proven right, that he was never fit to be President and should have been impeached long ago. But Mr. Trumpâs character flaws were apparent for all to see when he ran for President.
Sixty-three million Americans voted to elect Mr. Trump in 2016, and that constitutional process shouldnât be easily overruled as Democrats and the press have demanded from nearly his first day in office. You donât impeach for anticipatory offenses or for those that donât rise to the level of constitutional violations. This weekâs actions are a far greater dereliction of duty than his ham-handed Ukrainian interventions in 2019.
The related but separate question is whether impeachment or forced removal under the 25th Amendment now is in the countryâs best interests. The latter seems unwise unless Mr. Trump threatens some other reckless or unconstitutional act. After Wednesday he has promised to assist an âorderly transitionâ of power. A Cabinet cabal ousting him would smack of a Beltway coup and give Mr. Trump more cause to play the political victim.
Impeachment has the virtue of being transparent and politically accountable. If there were enough votes to convict in the Senate, it would also seem less partisan. The best case for impeachment is not to punish Mr. Trump. It is to send a message to future Presidents that Congress will protect itself from populists of all ideological stripes willing to stir up a mob and threaten the Capitol or its Members.
But impeachment so late in the term wonât be easy or without rancor. It would further enrage Mr. Trumpâs supporters in a way that wonât help Mr. Biden govern, much less heal partisan divisions. It would pour political fuel on Wednesdayâs dying embers.
All the more so because Democrats arenât likely to behave responsibly or with restraint. They are already stumping for impeachment articles that include a litany of anti-Trump grievances over four years. Mrs. Pelosiâs ultimatum Thursday that Mr. Pence trigger the 25th Amendment or sheâll impeach also wonât attract GOP votes.
Democrats would have more impeachment credibility now if they hadnât abused the process in 2019. A parade of impeachers that includes Russian-collusion promoters Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler would repel more Americans than it would persuade. The mission would look like political revenge, not constitutional enforcementâand Mr. Trump would play it as such until his last breath. Mr. Biden could gain much goodwill if he called off the impeachers in the name of stepping back from annihilationist politics.
If Mr. Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign. This would be the cleanest solution since it would immediately turn presidential duties over to Mr. Pence. And it would give Mr. Trump agency, a la Richard Nixon, over his own fate.
This might also stem the flood of White House and Cabinet resignations that are understandable as acts of conscience but could leave the government dangerously unmanned. Robert OâBrien, the national security adviser, in particular should stay at his post.
We know an act of grace by Mr. Trump isnât likely. In any case this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure. He has cost Republicans the House, the White House, and now the Senate. Worse, he has betrayed his loyal supporters by lying to them about the election and the ability of Congress and Mr. Pence to overturn it. He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose.
It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.
Invoke the 25th Amendment: Donald Trump forfeited his moral authority to stay in office
Our View: By egging on a deadly insurrection and hailing the rioters, the presidentâs continuance in office poses unacceptable risks to America
The Editorial Board
USA TODAY
Ever since Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection, Americans have wondered to what depths he would sink in his efforts to overturn the results and cling to power.
On Wednesday, they got their answer: The president of the United States incited a mob of supporters and sicced them on the Capitol, just as Congress was about to count the statesâ electoral votes and affirm Joe Bidenâs victory. In the ensuing chaos, the hallowed chambers were desecrated, the ceremonial process was disrupted, one woman was fatally shot and three others died.
By egging on this deadly insurrection and hailing the rioters (âWe love you, youâre very special.â), the president forfeited his moral authority to hold the nationâs highest office, even for 13 more days. More urgent, he reinforced profound questions, and raised new ones, about his judgment and ability to fulfill his most minimal responsibilities to the country he is supposed to lead and protect. Trumpâs continuance in office poses unacceptable risks to America.
Orderly transfer of power
Foreign adversaries sense disarray and weakness. People close to Trump say his mental state is fragile. Even though he committed early Thursday to an orderly transfer of power, who knows what pardons he might grant, what orders he might issue as commander in chief and what other desperate measures he might take before Jan. 20?
Resignation would be the preferable means for Trump to depart; Richard Nixon quit when Republican elders told him the jig was up amid the Watergate scandal. But there is no reason to believe that Trump will leave voluntarily, even in response to entreaties from top aides and GOP lawmakers.
Impeachment by Congress is another long shot. In December 2019, the House impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but the Senate acquitted him last February.
Shameful Republican support
This month, time is short, and Trump retains considerable support among congressional Republicans. Shamefully, even after Wednesdayâs insurrection, 139 representatives and eight senators backed Trumpâs efforts to overturn the will of the voters in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
That leaves the 25th Amendment, which sets out procedures for replacing an unfit president.
Invoking the 25th, a step urged Thursday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others, is neither easy nor ideal. It requires the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to certify that the president is unable to discharge his duties. If that happened, Trump would immediately be stripped of his powers and Vice President Mike Pence would become the acting president. Trump would likely challenge the move, and some significant portion of the 74 million who voted for him would cry âcoup!â This could pour fuel on an already volatile situation.
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Arnold
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PURE PROPAGANDAâŚstraight from Parler and the hoodlums/thugs/crazies that DJT promotes.
Watch at your own discretion
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Trumpâs existential threat: How to keep GOP in line without Twitter
The president has used Twitter to punish perceived disloyalty within his party. Now heâs lost his favorite tool at a defining moment.
Donald Trump was meeting then-campaign manager Brad Parscale and other political aides in the White House Cabinet Room early last year when the president made a demand: Find me a social media platform to use other than Twitter.
Someone in the meeting had piped up with concern that Twitter â Trumpâs primary outlet for communicating with his supporters and the outside world â might eventually ban him over controversial posts. The Trump team mobilized after the meeting, with Parscale starting discussions about whether to have the president take up a major presence on the Trump-friendly platform Parler, posting messages there first in order to drive more users to the platform.
Trump never went for the idea, according to two people familiar with the deliberations. He was too fond of Twitter, especially his enormous audience on the platform. But now, after Twitterâs Friday evening decision to permanently ban him, the president will have no choice but to start from scratch somewhere else. And Trump is losing his online bully pulpit as he confronts an enormous political challenge: How to keep the Republican Party in lockstep behind him as a defeated ex-president, in the wake of a deadly riot at the Capitol that he stoked, and as he confronts likely impeachment proceedings.
âNo question that Twitter was the presidentâs megaphone to his supporters and the media. In fact, without Twitter, he may not have been elected in 2016,â said Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio, who worked on the presidentâs 2016 and 2020 campaigns. âWhile I am sure he will find other means to communicate with his core loyalists, losing the ability to communicate to 88 million people all at once will definitely diminish his reach post-Jan. 20.â
Trumpâs advisers have been preparing a post-presidency political apparatus that could be used to target Republicans he has declared disloyal, such as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Trump will have a massive financial arsenal at his disposal, having raised hundreds of millions of dollars since the election â much of it for a new political action committee heâs formed.
But Trumpâs most potent political weapon was always likely to be his Twitter account, which he has long used to rally supporters against those he feels have wronged him. He went after Kemp and Thune repeatedly on Twitter over the last few months, accusing them of undermining his quest to overturn the election.
The mechanics of the social media platform meshed well with Trumpâs overall goal of bending Republicans to his will, allowing him to post one attack after another in bursts. The postings drew widespread coverage from media outlets, further amplifying their power.
Trump used his Twitter feed during the 2018 midterm elections to turn his supporters against once-popular Republicans like former South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford, former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and former Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who either lost reelection or chose to retire. During the 2020 election cycle, he went after former Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, who left the Republican Party and ultimately didnât seek reelection.
âTrump just lost his favorite end-around play and is sidelined,â said Scott Reed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerceâs former senior political adviser.
As they laid the groundwork for the reelection campaign in 2020, Trump advisers recognized that being banned from Twitter could prove devastating. There were ongoing conversations with the president last year about making Facebook his primary social media outlet instead, with aides regarding it as a more conservative-friendly platform. Conversations about Parler continued into the summer. But Trump always fell back onto Twitter.
Current and former Trump advisers were taken aback by Twitterâs announcement of the ban, with some conceding that it could severely hamper his ability to communicate as he approaches post-White House life. One former top adviser to the president remarked: âWithout Twitter, he is just a guy talking to himself.â
What platform Trump turns to next is unclear. After Wednesdayâs deadly storming of the Capitol, Facebook and Instagram announced that Trump would be banned âindefinitely,â at least through President-elect Joe Bidenâs Jan. 20. inauguration. YouTube has yet to ban Trump, but announced earlier in the week that it would suspend any channel echoing baseless claims of voter fraud, something Trump has given voice to.
There has long been talk that Trump could start his own news outlet once he leaves the White House, but people in his orbit have long been skeptical of that idea, reasoning that launching a new platform would be a major enterprise.
Shortly after his account was suspended, Trump turned to his official government Twitter feed to declare that he and his supporters would âlook at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.â
âWe will not be silenced,â Trump wrote. âStay tuned.â
The post appears to have been deleted by Twitter shortly after it was published. Twitter also suspended the Trump campaign account.
Many believe that Trump will find another means of getting his message out.
âI always knew that social media platforms were trigger-happy to ban the president. They just were waiting for the right moment. However, it will not stop the presidentâs ability to communicate. Heâll just post in another place,â said Parscale, who served as digital director on Trumpâs 2016 campaign before becoming his 2020 campaign manager.
Others argue that Trump will have numerous other ways of reaching the news media, which is certain to cover post-White House life obsessively.
âIt shuts down a major platform, yes, but he has other platforms,â said Kevin Madden, a top spokesperson on Mitt Romneyâs 2012 presidential campaign. âHe can get on the air via talk radio or call into cable news whenever he wants. Any message or content he wants promoted still has a legion of supporters ready to push it.â
There is also the prospect that Trumpâs absence from Twitter could leave a vacuum for one of his children to fill. Donald Trump Jr., who has used social media to establish a following of his own, is widely expected to remain visible and take on a kingmaker-type role in the Republican Party in the months to come.
The younger Trump, who has frequently accused technology companies of being biased against conservatives, took to Twitter after Friday eveningâs announcement to castigate the move.
âCensorship is happening like NEVER before!â he posted.
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Yes, how far is too far?
MTG takes up all the oxygen in her off-kilter remarks and dangerous positions. She needs to be curtailed, or removed.
Thereâs still time for Republican leaders to reject Q.
The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
How far is too far? This is the question Republican leaders are being forced to grapple with as the public outcry grows over one of their newest House members, Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The Georgia freshman is best known for endorsing QAnon, the right-wing movement convinced of the fiction that Donald Trump is a messiah sent to defeat a cabal of Satan-worshiping, child-abusing, deep-state villains. But this is just one of the bizarre lies she has peddled. Her greatest hits include promoting the conspiracy theory that blames the 2018 Camp Fire wildfire in California on a space laser controlled by a prominent Jewish banking family, suggesting the Obama administration used its MS-13 âhenchmenâ to murder a Democratic National Committee staff member and floating the idea that the Clintons had John F. Kennedy Jr. killed. She has dabbled in 9/11 Trutherism and contended that various school shootings were false-flag operations. She also traffics in racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim talk.
Ms. Greene does not draw the line at promoting bigotry and disinformation. Videos and social media posts from before she ran for Congress show her endorsing violence against those she sees as enemy combatants in an ongoing civil war. She has expressed support of social media calls to execute high-profile Democrats, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and F.B.I. agents. When asked about such activities, Ms. Greene has dodged, asserting that her pages have been run by âteamsâ of people over the years, some promoting views with which she does not agree. Many of the posts in question have since been scrubbed.
Ms. Greeneâs behavior since her election has been troubling as well. She has peddled false claims that the presidential election was stolen and rife with fraud. She was among the 139 House Republicans who voted to overturn the results of the Electoral College on Jan. 6, even after a pro-Trump mob sacked the Capitol. On Jan. 17, Twitter briefly suspended her account for repeatedly violating its âcivic integrity policy.â
The silence from Republican leaders has been deafening. That canât continue if the party has any hope of reclaiming conservatism from nihilistic rot â something every American should be rooting for to maintain a healthy two-party system. Ms. Greene is now a member of the House of Representatives, with a prominent platform and real power to have impact on peopleâs lives. She has a responsibility to act â and speak â in the best interests of the American public and of the Constitution she has sworn to serve and defend. Peddling grotesque lies, cheering talk of political violence (which she claims to oppose) and fomenting sedition run counter to her oath of office.
With each new revelation, the calls to discipline Ms. Greene grow louder. Representative Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat from California, plans to introduce a resolution calling for her expulsion from Congress, which had at least 50 members signed on as of Friday. This approach is unlikely to succeed. While the Constitution gives both chambers of Congress wide latitude to punish members, expulsion, which requires a two-thirds majority to pass, has been used rarely over the centuries. Lawmakers prefer to leave it to voters to hand down such a sentence.
Representatives Nikema Williams of Georgia and Sara Jacobs of California plan to introduce a resolution to censure Ms. Greene. This penalty is imposed more frequently and requires only a simple majority to pass. It is meant to serve as a badge of shame. Of course, Ms. Greene, who revels in shamelessness, might well wear it as a badge of honor â evidence that a corrupt, elitist political establishment was out to get her.
Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida is among those calling for a more appropriate punishment: stripping Ms. Greene of her committee assignments. Critics are particularly incensed by Ms. Greeneâs being placed on the education committee, in light of her deranged theories on school shootings.
Republicans have recent experience in this area. In 2019, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, stripped Steve King of his committee posts for defending white nationalism in an interview with The Times. The Iowa lawmaker had a long history of racist remarks, for which voters had largely given him a pass. But losing his committee assignments did not simply mark Mr. King, it drained his influence and his ability to serve constituents. Mr. King lost his primary race last year, ending his nine terms in office.
Mr. McCarthy needs to take substantive action of this kind with Ms. Greene. Voters may have just chosen Ms. Greene to represent them, but her Republican colleagues have the leeway to declare that she does not represent them. When Ms. Greeneâs statements about assassinating Ms. Pelosi surfaced, Mr. McCarthyâs office called them âdeeply disturbingâ and said he would have a talk with her about them this week. Mr. McCarthy has an opportunity to make clear that there are standards of decency and duty that transcend partisanship. Others are watching, within his conference and beyond.
Ms. Greene has thus far met criticism with defiance. âI will never back down. I will never give up,â she said in a statement on Friday, which included an ominous warning to her party. âIf Republicans cower to the mob, and let the Democrats and the Fake News media take me out, theyâre opening the door to come after every single Republican until thereâs none left.â
Ms. Greene is correct that the Republican Party is facing a serious threat from an unhinged mob. She should know; sheâs one of its leaders.
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Republicans have revealed their true colors in the ugliest fashion â and too many liberals want to look away
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Tucker Carlson should stop pretending he cares about the women and men in uniform
Brian Stelter of CNN notes that Tucker Carlson, Fox News Channelâs top-rated host, has become the ânew Donald Trumpâ as the leading outrage generator on the populist right. Every night Carlson says something false and obscene: Itâs his business model.
Last week, Carlson trained his insult machine on the U.S. military. He flashed a picture of a flight suit for pregnant women (actually developed during the Trump administration) and complained, âItâs a mockery of the U.S. military.â He went on to pontificate that âwhile Chinaâs military becomes more masculine,â our military is becoming âmore feminine, whatever feminine means anymore since men and women no longer exist. ⌠Itâs out of control, and the Pentagon is going along with this.â
This earned Carlson, who has never served a day in uniform, a well-deserved upbraiding from the Defense Department. There are 232,000 women serving on active duty, constituting 16.5 percent of the total force, and they routinely go into harmâs way. Indeed, recruiting and retaining women is essential to maintaining the U.S. militaryâs edge over China and other potential adversaries. Carlsonâs sexist comments make that harder given how many troops watch Fox News. (It is routinely on in military gyms and chow halls.)
Defense Department spokesman John Kirby pledged that âwe absolutely wonât ⌠take personnel advice from a talk show host.â The Pentagon news site carried an article headlined: âPress Secretary Smites Fox Host That Dissed Diversity in U.S. Military.â
Many individual service members echoed Kirbyâs outrage. My favorite example was a tweet from a Marine Corps veteran:
Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, brother of whistleblower Alexander Vindman, suggested that Fox News be taken off the American Forces Network and TV sets in military common areas. âThis is bad for morale, good order and discipline,â he tweeted.
Carlson can dish out criticism but not take it. He spent the next night whining about how the Defense Department shouldnât attack him â which he described as declaring âwar on a domestic news operation.â (Wonder where he was when President Donald Trump was calling the media the âenemy of the people.â)
Has Carlson finally gone too far by taking on an institution revered by the country? It would be nice to think so. Sen. Joe McCarthy, after all, famously crashed and burned after he accused the U.S. Army of being a hotbed of subversives. âHave you no sense of decency?" demanded the Armyâs lawyer, and McCarthy was finished.
Sadly, I donât see that happening in this instance. The populist right has already made clear that its supposed devotion to the armed forces is entirely transactional: They will claim to be supporting the men and women who keep us safe if by doing so they can score points against the âlibs.â But if the armed forces are an obstacle to their ruthless quest for total power, then they have no compunctions about turning on the troops.
Trump shows how the game is played. âI will always protect our great warfighters,â he claimed, yet he routinely insulted them. He accused troops in Iraq of stealing money, denied that John McCain was a war hero because he was captured, allegedly described soldiers who died in combat as âsuckers and losers,â and reportedly called senior generals and admirals âa bunch of dopes and babies.â
The worst offenses that Trump committed against the armed forces were to pardon war criminals and to send troops to attack peaceful protesters. Those actions subvert the core professionalism of the military, which sees itself as an apolitical institution that follows the rule of law. Little wonder that public faith in the military eroded under Trump.
Of course, Trump knows nothing of the military or its ethos. He viewed the armed forces as if they were a MAGA militia. âI have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump â I have the tough people, but they donât play it tough â until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad," Trump threatened his critics in 2019.
Yet there has been no backlash on the right against Trump despite all the ways that he and his followers have abused the armed forces. Likewise, there is no evidence of any right-wing backlash against Carlson for turning the military into collateral damage in the cultural wars.
Instead, right-wing author J.D. Vance, of âHillbilly Elegyâ fame, attacked military leaders for being too âwokeâ â a ludicrous charge to make against an overwhelmingly conservative officer corps. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.) are defending Carlson and attacking the military. Expect to see more anti-military sentiment on the right now that the Defense Department is under a Democratic administration.
Tucker and Trump should stop pretending that they give a damn about the men and women who serve America. All they care about is self-promotion. They will happily sacrifice the troops on the altar of their own ambition â and their followers wonât care.
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Dropping in valueâŚthe Trump empireâŚboo hoo
Trumpâs Ailing Empire
His Fortune Slips to $2.3 Billion as Covid and Riot Take a Toll
Donald Trump upended the American presidency after stepping away from the company that made him rich and famous. Four years later, returning to his empire after losing the White House, what he finds may upend him.
Trumpâs net worth is down to $2.3 billion from $3 billion when he became president, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The pandemic he promised would disappear is walloping his company, and the riot that got him impeached for a second time is wounding his brand.
More information hereâŚbut you need to pass thru the "Are you a Robot?â test.
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Why arenât we calling the Capitol attack an act of treason?
There has been little public discussion of the term as the framework for understanding what happened on 6 January, experts say
During Donald Trumpâs presidency, the UC Davis law professor Carlton Larson spent a lot of time on the phone telling journalists: âItâs not treason.â
Trumpâs behavior towards Russia: not treason. All the FBI investigations Trump labeled as treason: also not treason. Then came the 6 January attack on the Capitol by hundreds of Trump supporters. That was treason according to the founding fathers, Larson wrote in an op-ed the next day.
But in the three months since 6 January, however, there has been little public discussion of âtreasonâ as the framework for understanding what happened, Larson said. âEverything was âTreason, treason, treason,â when it wasnât, and now you have an event that is closer to the original 18th-century definition of treason than anything thatâs happened, and itâs almost silent. Nobody is using the term at all,â he said.
Federal prosecutors have brought cases against more than 300 people allegedly involved in the Capitol insurrection. So far, many of the rioters have been charged with lower-level offenses, like âdisorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted buildingâ. A few members of extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, are facing more serious conspiracy charges.
There has been some public discussion of whether some rioters should face âseditionâ charges, including an early comment by then president-elect Joe Biden that the rioting at the Capitol was an âunprecedented assaultâ on democracy that âborders on seditionâ.
A federal prosecutor who had been working on the Capitol cases told 60 Minutes in late March that he personally believed âthe facts do supportâ sedition charges against some suspects. Michael Sherwin, the prosecutor, was publicly criticized by a federal judge for the media appearance, and is now the subject of an internal review over whether he spoke out inappropriately.
Treason is defined in the US constitution as âlevying warâ against the United States, or âadheringâ to the enemies of the United States and âgiving them aid and comfortâ. The framers had in mind âmen gathering with guns, forming an army, and marching on the seat of governmentâ, Larson said.
Sedition, in contrast, is âa broader term for disloyal behaviorâ against the government, Larson said.
There are two main types of sedition in US law: one is sedition associated with speech, or âseditious libelâ, a charge which has been repeatedly used in the US to target anti-war and leftist activists, particularly during wartime, according to Jenny Carroll, a professor at the University of Alabama school of law. The other is âseditious conspiracyâ, defined under federal law as taking action either to âoverthrowâ the US government, to use force âto prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of the United Statesâ or âto seize, take, or possess any property of the United Statesâ.
While treason is a crime still punishable by death in the United States, the maximum penalty for seditious conspiracy is 20 years.
âIf thatâs not seditious conspiracy, I donât know what isâ
In his book On Treason: A Citizenâs Guide to the Law, Larson argued that Americans were unlikely to mount an internal rebellion against the United States in modern times. Then the Capitol attack proved him wrong.
What was distinctive about the Capitol riot, he said, was the use of force, which is necessary for something to count as âlevying warâ against the United States.
He compared the insurrection to the anti-tax Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, which was forcefully put down by George Washington, and resulted in multiple indictments for treason.
âIf you asked a lawyer in 1790 if [6 January] was an act of treason or levying war against the United States, they would have almost certainly said yes,â Larson said.
Yet Larson said he did not expect prosecutors would file treason charges in the 6 January cases, because the charge would probably add too many legal complications. A legal precedent from 1851 set a higher bar for the definition of treason, he wrote, defining it only as an attempt to overthrow the government itself, not simply the obstruction of one particular law.
The definition of âseditious conspiracyâ, in contrast, seems like a much easier match, Larson and Carroll agreed, particularly because it includes conspiracies âto prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any lawâ, which the Capitol invaders appear to have accomplished by forcing lawmakers to hide and delaying the certification of the 2020 election results.
âSeditious conspiracy captures the flavor of January 6,â said Steve Vladeck, a federal courts expert at the University of Texas school of law. âYou had a whole lot of people â who may not have had exactly the same motive, or may not have committed the exact same acts â who were in a very large degree involved in a common plan, the goal of which was to somehow, in some way, keep President Trump in office.â
âIf thatâs not seditious conspiracy, I donât know what is.â
Seditious conspiracy charges have been rare in US history
It remains unlikely that the majority of the rioters will face seditious conspiracy charges, experts said.
The crime of âseditious conspiracyâ requires proof, not just of the action, but of agreement, Carroll said. âThe global chatter among US attorneys is that there has been a lot of work to trace electronic communications individuals engaged in to figure out who was talking to who,â she added.
âTo the extent that there are charges for seditious conspiracy, it would be against particular little cells of people,â Larson said. âIt would be impossible to show that all of those people [at the Capitol] had some type of prior agreement with each other.â
Sherwin, the federal prosecutor, told 60 Minutes in late March that there were âover 400 criminal casesâ in total, but that only 10% of cases were âthe more complex conspiracy casesâ involving militia groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who âdid have a planâ.
Seditious conspiracy charges have been rare in US history. Thatâs largely because seditious conspiracy itself âdoesnât happen that muchâ, Larson said.
In 1995, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and several followers were convicted of seditious conspiracy in a case related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Oscar LĂłpez Rivera, the leader of a Puerto Rican independence group, served 35 years in prison for seditious conspiracy before Barack Obama commuted his sentence in 2017.
Some previous attempts by federal prosectors to convict far-right extremists for seditious conspiracy have failed.
In 2012, a Michigan judge dismissed sedition charges against the five members of the Hutaree militia, a Christian militia group, ruling that the governmentâs case had relied too much on âcircumstantial evidenceâ. Members of the group pleaded guilty to lesser weapons charges and were sentenced to time served.
In 1988, an all-white jury acquitted 13 white supremacists of sedition charges in a high-profile trial in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
More recently, Trumpâs attorney general, William Barr, called last summer for prosecutors to file seditious conspiracy charges against demonstrators against police violence in the wake of George Floydâs killing by police. Barr was particularly focused on protesters in Portland, where there had been property damage to a federal building, Carroll said.
This was âentirely inconsistent with how previous protest movementsâ had been treated, Carroll said, and prompted concern and outrage from legal experts.
The US government, Carroll said, âhas not been great about being consistent about how it treats different types of dissentersâ.
âDissenters calling for change in social conditions or racial conditions or class conditions tend to be much more heavily prosecuted than folks who do things like engage in voter intimidation or engage in acts of white-based maintenance of power.â
Sedition laws in the early 20th century, including the Sedition Act of 1918, was ânot only focused on World War Iâ, but âreally focused on shutting down socialists and communists, who the government thought were going to be a threat to democracyâ, said Roy Gutterman, the director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University.
The supreme court at the time upheld convictions of âsmall groups of dissidentsâ who were âdistributing fliers speaking out against the US governmentâ, Gutterman said. That included socialists passing out flyers advocating that Americans peacefully resist the draft, which the supreme court at the time ruled was not protected as free speech.
When a law originally designed to crack down on leftist and labor organizers were used to prosecute a Ku Klux Klan leader after a cross burning in the 1960s, the supreme court set a new standard, concluding that the law violated the Klan leaderâs free speech rights.
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Two articles:
The GOP canât be saved. Center-right voters need to become Biden Republicans.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump this year, recently told the Atlantic why he remains committed to the party: âIâm a Republican because Iâve been a Republican far longer than Donald Trump has. Heâs a Republican usurper.⌠Iâm not going to let him take the party. So I will fight. I will fight like hell.â
I admire Kinzingerâs fighting spirit. I once shared it. I recall saying something very similar in 2016 when Trump was marching through the Republican primaries: Itâs my party, and I wonât leave it. My hope was that a decisive win for Hillary Clinton would bring the GOP to its senses. That obviously did not happen, so the day after the 2016 election, I re-registered as an independent after a lifetime as a Republican.
It is a decision I have not for a moment regretted, because the GOP has become even more of a horror show than I anticipated. As former House speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) notes in a new memoir, the âcraziesâ have taken over. There are vanishingly few John McCain-style Republicans left; Kinzinger (a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard) is one of the few. The partyâs center of gravity has shifted to kooks such as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (who blamed Jewish space lasers for wildfires) and low-rent hucksters such as Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (who reportedly shared nude photos of his sexual conquests with his colleagues and is under investigation for possible sex trafficking).
Most Republicans donât care that Trump locked up children, cozied up to white supremacists, tear-gassed peaceful protesters, benefited from Russian help in both of his campaigns, egregiously mishandled the pandemic, incited a violent attack on the Capitol and even faced fraud complaints from his own donors. A new Reuters-Ipsos poll finds that 81 percent of Republicans have a favorable impression of Trump. Wait. It gets worse: 60 percent say the 2020 election was stolen from him, only 28 percent say he is even partly to blame for the Capitol insurrection, and 55 percent say that the Capitol attack âwas led by violent left-wing protestors trying to make Trump look bad.â
This is a portrait of a party that canât be saved â at least in the foreseeable future. The GOP remains a cult of personality for the worst president in U.S. history. It has become a bastion of irrationality, conspiracy mongering, racism, nativism and anti-scientific prejudices.
So what should a sane, center-right voter â someone who might have voted for the GOP in the past â do under those circumstances?
There has been talk of forming a third party, but itâs not likely to succeed in our winner-take-all political system. Smaller parties flourish only in countries with proportional representation. There hasnât been a successful third party in the United States since the 1850s, when the GOP arose out of the wreckage of the Whig Party. We can and should undermine the political duopoly with reforms such as multi-member congressional districts, ranked-choice voting and nonpartisan primaries. Such steps, which are being pushed by Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), would make moderate candidates and even third-party candidates more viable.
But we wonât transform our political system anytime soon. In the meantime, centrists have a binary choice: Support either an increasingly extremist and obstructionist Republican Party or a Democratic Party that, under President Biden, is working to solve our most pressing problems.
Biden has turbocharged vaccinations with better management: The seven-day average of new vaccination doses has gone from 892,399 on Inauguration Day to almost 3 million today. He has boosted the economic recovery with a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill; the unemployment rate is down to 6 percent. Now he is pushing a $2 trillion plan to rebuild our dilapidated infrastructure â something that Trump only talked about doing.
Itâs possible to oppose Bidenâs plans on fiscal conservative grounds, but Republicans have no standing left on that issue after supporting Trumpâs $1.9 trillion tax cut during an economic expansion. Likewise, Republicans have lost all credibility on free trade by supporting Trumpâs trade wars and on foreign policy by backing Trumpâs neo-isolationism. What do they have left? Scare-mongering rhetoric (every Democratic initiative is a sign of âsocialismâ) and culture wars (Dr. Seuss, Major League Baseball) to distract their base.
But while Biden hasnât gotten any GOP votes in Congress for his agenda yet, he has won broad approval from the country at large. At 53.1 percent, Bidenâs approval rating is higher than Trumpâs ever was. Polls show that 73 percent approve of Bidenâs handling of the coronavirus and 60 percent of his handling of the economy. There is also broad support for his infrastructure plan, with 64 percent backing tax hikes on corporations to pay for it.
Biden is governing from the ânew center,â while Republicans are increasingly catering to the far right with shrill, divisive rhetoric and antidemocratic actions such as bills to restrict voting. Under those circumstances, those of us on the center-right canât afford a third-party flirtation. We need to become Biden Republicans.
New GOP Panic as âBiden Republicansâ Upend Trumpâs Alliance
President Biden is boasting about Mitch McConnellâs voters supporting his policies. In this special report, MSNBCâs Ari Melber examines how republican voters are supporting Pres. Bidenâs agenda from the popular Covid Relief Bill to a $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs package. Melber reports on how democrats are using the âReagan Playbookâ â working on a wave of âBiden Republicansâ similar to the âReagan Democrats.â
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We see all the undercurrents going on with the Republican party and their desire to call out the legitimately won election for Biden - The Big Lie. The push is for them to continue with keeping this false idea out there, igniting their base and poisoning the democracy.
It is a terrifying prospect to have this party create a blind trust to 1/3 or the population to continue to believe in their lies. 2022 is not that far off for lots more changes in the House/Senate and swinging it back to the Râs.
Thomas L. Friedman
Trumpâs Big Lie Devoured the G.O.P. and Now Eyes Our Democracy
May 4, 2021
Opinion Columnist
President Bidenâs early success in getting Americans vaccinated, pushing out stimulus checks and generally calming the surface of American life has been a blessing for the country. But itâs also lulled many into thinking that Donald Trumpâs Big Lie that the election was stolen, which propelled the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, would surely fade away and everything would return to normal. It hasnât.
We are not OK. Americaâs democracy is still in real danger. In fact, we are closer to a political civil war â more than at any other time in our modern history. Todayâs seeming political calm is actually resting on a false bottom that weâre at risk of crashing through at any moment.
Because, instead of Trumpâs Big Lie fading away, just the opposite is happening â first slowly and now quickly.
Under Trumpâs command and control from Mar-a-Largo, and with the complicity of most of his partyâs leaders, that Big Lie â that the greatest election in our history, when more Republicans and Democrats voted than ever before, in the midst of a pandemic , must have been rigged because Trump lost â has metastasized. Itâs being embraced by a solid majority of elected Republicans and ordinary party members â local, state and national.
âDenying the legitimacy of our last election is becoming a prerequisite for being elected as a Republican in 2022,â observed Gautam Mukunda, host of Nasdaqâs âWorld Reimaginedâ podcast and author of the book âIndispensable: When Leaders Really Mattered.â
âThis is creating a filter that over time will block out anyone willing to tell the truth about the election.â It will leave us with âa Republican Party where you cannot rise without declaring that the sun sets in the East, a Republican Party where being willing to help steal an election is literally a job requirement.â
This is not an exaggeration. Here is what Representative Anthony Gonzalez, one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, told The Hill about the campaign within the party to oust Representative Liz Cheney from her House G.O.P. leadership position, because of her refusal to go along with the Big Lie:
âIf a prerequisite for leading our conference is continuing to lie to our voters, then Liz is not the best fit. Liz isnât going to lie to people. ⌠Sheâs going to stand on principle.â
Think about that for a second. To be a leader in todayâs G.O.P. you either have to play dumb or be dumb on the central issue facing our Republic: the integrity of our election. You have to accept everything that Trump has said about the election â without a shred of evidence â and ignore everything his own attorney general, F.B.I. director and election security director said â based on the evidence â that there was no substantive fraud.
What kind of deformed party will such a dynamic produce? A party so willing to be marinated in such a baldfaced lie will lie about anything, including who wins the next election and every one after that.
There is simply nothing more dangerous for a two-party democracy than to have one party declare that no election where it loses is legitimate, and, therefore, if it loses it will just lie about the results and change the rules.
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