The Forest for the Trees

The Republicans are staging a slow-moving coup.

 

 

Is it just me who believes the Republicans are staging a slow-moving coup right before our eyes? Selectively following or ignoring rules for an impeachment, setting their own arbitrary (and fast-changing) rules for consideration of a Supreme Court nominee, voting in jackbooted lockstep again and again to pound the last shreds of Congressional bipartisanship into dust under their feet…. The Democrats respond to each new blow to the system with parliamentary flourishes, Robert’s Rules of Order, and the outrage of a small child being repeatedly smacked by the schoolyard bully. While my heart goes out to that small child, my head is screaming, Do something!

 

While Mitch McConnell’s cosmic villainy might once have been held in check by precedent and custom, his relentless support of Trump’s actions over the last 3 ½ years signals something new and dangerous. If Trump loses the election and goes whole hog in declaring the election a fraud, who in the Republican party will have the courage to take him aside and tell him to take the defeat gracefully for the good of the country? Mitch McConnell? Lindsey Graham? Cory Gardner? Joni Ernst? Jim Jordan? Chuck Grassley? Yeah, right.

 

So, what is going on right before our eyes? What are we beholding, but not seeing? The Republican party is done with compromise. Compromise is for weaklings. It’s my way or the highway, Jack. Exactly what are the Republicans trying to accomplish? It appears they are trying to create a nation in which ignorance is the new knowledge, civic ugliness is our lingua franca, and suppressed voting rights are the standard for our elections. It also appears that they will be willing to risk civil unrest to remain in power. It’s high time for the Democrats to stop bringing their best butter knives to what has clearly become a knife fight. And it’s time to call the Republicans’ actions what they are: an incitement to civil war.