Yes, they are the real RINO’s (Republicans in name only); those spineless wonders who are furious because Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) will not help them sweep January 6 under the rug.
Instead, Cheney opines that RINO’s who refused to recognize Biden’s victory at the polls and who, at Trump’s insistence, refused to acknowledge the tabulation of the results of the 2020 election, should be disqualified as future Republican Presidential candidates. She is forthright in stating that Trump’s lies and exhortations are simply a line that no self-respecting American should cross. Elizabeth Cheney sees the January 6th Trump-inspired attempted coup d’etat for precisely what it was, an attempt to overthrow the newly elected, but not yet inaugurated, President of the United States of America.
Understand this: America has suffered no greater insult to its very purpose than the January 6th vicious domestic attack on the US Capitol. Yes, there have been other attacks; the March 1, 1954 attack in the House chamber by Puerto Rican nationalists comes to mind, as does the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumpter on April 12, 1861, and, of course, the August 24, 1814, burning and sacking of the White House by the British. But the January 6th attack on American Democracy, largely encouraged and stridently cheered on by the President of the United States, has no parallel. It was among the ugliest days in American History.
So, Liz Cheney, as Republican a Republican as there has ever been, and a handful of other Republicans, a pitifully small handful, have put their political futures on the line to stand with, and for, America’s constitutional democracy. They are all profiles in courage because they are willing to stand up to the RINOs who are in control and who are about to savage Cheney, and in the process, savage their own party, if not their country. Shame on them all.
These Republican pretenders were, and are, nothing more than Trump sycophants. Huge deficits and unbalanced budgets? Who cares? These RINOs chalked up trillions of dollars worth of who cares deficits during the Trump Administration. Free trade? Who cares? According to the Federal Reserve, these RINOs went along with aggressive tariffs that accomplished nothing other than savaging many farmers and throwing 75,000 American Steelworkers (and others) out of work. In fact, the trade deficit of $4.8 trillion during Trump’s first three years (pre-pandemic) was greater than the trade deficit during Obama’s last three years. Who cares? Not the RINO’s who are about to strip Cheney of her leadership role. Fidelity to principle versus fealty to Trump? No contest; fealty to Trump, trumps fidelity to principle by a wide margin with these RINOs.
Ironically, the RINOs who are about to cashier Liz Cheney are about to line up in support of Elise Stefanik (R-NY), whose credentials for leadership, compared to Cheney’s, are laughable. Up until it served her interest to become a Trump supporter, she was a frequent Trump critic, and her voting record has, more often than not, irritated conservative Republicans. But they need a woman to replace Liz Cheney, and apparently, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R- GA.) is a farce too far.
Let a Republican; anyone will do, acknowledge that Trump lost the last election, or that there is simply no credible evidence of widespread election fraud, or that chronic lying to the American People is just plain unacceptable, or that it was seditious to encourage his supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to stop the certification of a newly elected President, and the Maelstrom of Mar-a-Lago will turn on them with a vengeance.
Former Reagan speechwriter and longtime Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan brilliantly summed up, in her column yesterday, the current Republican contretemps. “It wasn’t to roam the halls and yell. It was something grave and dark: to disrupt and prevent the constitutionally mandated counting of the Electoral College votes in the 2020 presidential election. That (tabulation of elector ballots) was scheduled to occur in Congress that day. That act of tabulating is more than two centuries old, formalizes and validates the election outcome, physically represents the peaceful transfer of power, and has never been stopped or disrupted. What happened on 1/6 was an attempted assault on the constitutional order.”
Nonetheless, these RINOs know they will face a Trump-supported primary opponent or general election opponent if they don’t acquiesce to Trump. That’s all it takes to have nearly all of today’s House and Senate Republicans turn on fellow Republicans and American Democracy in the process. Embracing Trump’s Goebbelsian big lie about the 2020 election, or at least not questioning it, is the price nearly all of today’s House Republicans are willing to pay not to anger the Maelstrom of Mar-a-Lago. It’s tragic.
The Republican Party, my party for over 50 years, is at a turning point. It is clear to me it has decided to turn the wrong way.
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Hal:
You have encapsulated what’s going on in the GOP perfectly. The bully has taken over the neighborhood and it’s inhabitants are cowering in their political boots, the constitution be damned.
Great article, Hal, on the very sad demise of the Republican Party in our country. I don’t think it is at a turning point, however — the almost unanimous Republican support of Trump during his years in office, the bloc voting/refusal to convict after two impeachment trials, the election of Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert to Congress, and the January 6 insurrection–these were the turning points. The Republicans now have gone completely off the rails – in my opinion, they are unsalvagable. As you say, it is tragic.
What I’d like to know is this: Instead of all this hand-wringing and spinning around we see in the media, why don’t the Liz Cheneys, Mitt Romneys and others of similar mind get together to figure out how to block this coming train wreck? Make Stacy Abrams the Chair of Election Strategy for the country — hire Magnus Carlson and Gary Kasparov as consultants. Engage the best military strategists and Wall Street. 2022 is fast approaching and 2024 is around the corner. If somehow, the anti-Trump Republicans and the Democrats together can’t pull together a coalition to check-mate the “Big Lie” movement that is snowballing in the red states, we once again risk losing our country to a maniacal power-hungry authoritarian. We sit on our hands at our own peril.
Great article, Hal. The sad thing is that they condone Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor-Greene and those like them (who are not a threat to their positions but a threat to the country and democracy) and take issues with respectable republicans who dare to talk and criticize their strategy. While the country is in need for unity and long-term vision to move forward, the most important thing in their minds are Dr Suess or “Biden banning burgers” etc. If this is the intellectual level the party is sinking into, this is really sad. I hope people like Larry Hogan, Liz Chaney, Mitt Romney and other republican’s who like their country more than their position (and there are a lot of them), could stand up and do something.
Hal, hat’s off to you.
As a former member of the Republican Party it must be difficult to write the summary truth about the party gone bad but the truth it is. Trump has absconded with the Republican party like he absconded with banks, investors, contractors and former partners money over the decades.
Perhaps only the incarceration of ‘the former guy’ will provide ‘real’ Republicans the opportunity to reclaim & rededicate the party to it’s conservative yet ‘democratic’ principals.
Well done!
Am sure you will find today in both parties the censure
possibility and the Republicans are no worse or better than the
Democrats in this regard. There is little discord in the
Democrat circles because there is more fear of retribution.
Hal, you don’t need me to add that this essay was both brilliant and sad. I am reminded of Goya’s painting in the Prado:” Saturn eating his Children.”. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Sad to see a once proud, steady institution turn on itself, and for what? We are losing a very important and necessary balancing half to our body politic. I fear that after this we face the deluge from the other half. Please tell me I’m wrong. By
Michael Gong — thank you for your comment – it is a great analogy. — For anyone who is not familiar with the Goya painting you mentioned, this is a really good and simplified explanation of the terrifying allegory:
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/romanticism-in-spain/v/goya-saturn-devouring-one-of-his-sons.
Hal, I’m just a newby reader of your essays, but you’ve “hit the nail on the head” of every issue I’ve read over the past 6 or 7 weeks, and they should be mandatory reading for both “Houses”. They might learn a thing or two.
Thank you for your outstanding input.
I will never understand the fear our last president has put in the mind of so many Republicans.
I always enjoy reading Hal because he is a clear concise writer who is flawless with facts—— but——. In the previous election candidate Hillary sounded just like trump with her accusations of fraud. The dems with their fake charges to throw trump- the alleged fake president out of office just used different tactics to destroy and limit trump. As for rigid voting which dems vote against the dictates of commissar pelosi. Actually both parties are only driven to retain their power and to hell with the good of the country. The rich and powerful get richer and more powerful and the average American gets screwed. To get on a pedestal and state otherwise is to live with the mask actually used as a blindfold.
Great article. Truth hurts and I hope it hurts the crazy Reps. Keep up the great articles.