The Revelations Keep Coming

American Nazis in Florida, upchucking anti-Semitic hate from their suppurating ids. Delusional QAnon supporters parading at the border, defaming immigrants; shutting down the National Butterfly Center, of all things, having pushed Qrazy conspiracies to the point of endangering its employees. Fraudulent Electoral College electors. These are people Republican leaders won’t criticize. So pardon my cacoethes for purple prose. It’s called for.

Election workers quitting in fear. Rally-addicted Trump, suborning mob rule against guardians of our laws as they investigate his personal and “presidential” crimes. Interminably pushing his election fabrications. Dangling pardons for the January 6 insurrectionists, video of whose criminality he replayed repeatedly that day, pleased. Making plans to confiscate voting machines. Urging replacement of honest election officials with ones who perpetuate his lies.

Feloniously destroying or absconding with White House records throughout his “presidency.” Flushing them and clogging toilets, reportedly. That’s the man to whom “law and order,” “family values,” “patriotic” most Republicans pledge fealty; to whose reelection they’re committed. This is only the most recent news.

He’s now admitted he wanted Mike Pence to “overturn” the election, something Pence had authority to do only in Trumpically infirm minds. But his Freudian use of “overturn” is telling: you can’t overturn something that’s not upright. Somewhere unreachable, he knows the election was lawful and decisive. (Or he’s clinically insane.) He just hopes his idolators stay stupefied. It’s never been about righting a fraudulent election. It’s about nullifying a legitimate one, then, now, forever.

Ironically, their un-American, anti-democratic behavior is acceptable only because our country isn’t yet the authoritarian, illiterate, history-denying black hole of their dreams. But they’re getting disturbingly close. They couldn’t have made more clear what’s at stake: If today’s Republican Party, enthusiastically embracing lawlessness and ignorance, gains majority power, fair elections are over. The voice of the public will be rendered irrelevant. Lies will become truth; truth, lies. Not pretending otherwise, they are, in fact, running on it. 

Oh, and murder will be legalized. Not kidding. 

Trading principle for power, elected Republicans delight in millions of Americidal followers still convinced the election was stolen. For which, other than Trump’s repetitive lies and Pillow-man’s daily proclamations that tomorrow’s tomorrow is when he’ll reveal history-making proof, there’s not a molecule of evidence. To the contrary, through manifold recounts and investigations, legitimacy is indisputable. But undead Trumpists believe. Even as revealed fraud is almost entirely on behalf of Republicans. 

Waving its love of lawlessness like swastikas outside a synagogue, the Republican National Committee just censured Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger for participating in the January 6 investigation. Said its chairperson, Ronna “Ignore-my-uncle” McDaniel, “We’ve had two members engage in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse…” Defilers of our capitol, bearers of Nazi regalia, spreaders of urine and feces and lies within and on its walls, breakers-down of doors. Threateners of hangings and beheadings; beaters and draggers of cops; precursors to five deaths: “Legitimate political discourse!” “Persecution!” Right. And Antifa?

Confident of Trumpists’ artisanal credulity, it was an official statement, bearing the imprimatur of the party of Lincoln. How can anyone who professes love for America not be appalled? Feel insulted? How can claimants of conservatism call themselves Republicans anymore?

No-middle-name McDaniel confirmed it: Republican leadership is all in. Decades of disinformation and fomentation, culminating in nominating a lifelong liar, a cheating, amoral “businessman” and gameshow host has left them only one way out, and they’re not taking it. Currying and capitalizing on the worst human instincts for decades, offering nothing but one-sided tax cuts and pollution-positive deregulation, they own the fleas of the dogs with whom they lie.

As long as they “stick it to the libs,” they’ll defend the deplorables they’ve elected to Congress (need we list them, again?), whether or not they accomplish anything. Promising investigation, not legislation. The silence of lambs who know better. How much lower?

McDaniel’s inquisition also convicted Cheney and Kinzinger of supporting “… Democrat efforts to destroy President Trump more than they support winning back a Republican majority...” If that party and its supporters retained an ounce of Lincolnian integrity, rejecting Trump and Trumpism would be a bedrock requirement for running.

After the past two weeks, the sickness of today’s Republicanism can be denied only by the infected. In the face of undoing centuries of American values and, soon, the Republic itself, silence is collusion. For love of country, true conservatives must reappear from the shadows of denial and reject the party that has rejected them. If not now, it won’t matter.

If Trump is nominated again, Republicans’ ruination will be permanent, and, like darkness after sunset, America’s will follow.

“Legitimate political discourse.” God help us.