The New Republican Reality

I think it is time to take stock of who Republicans really are.  

 

We supposedly live in a democratic republic.  The founders of this great country formulated a Constitution that provides for progress on all major issues by the use of compromise.  Compromise is only possible when it is built on the foundation of all participants living and believing in the same reality.

 

And here is the rub--it has become apparent that basically the entire Republican party, including the Congress and the citizens who claim to be Republican are living in a different false reality.  The reality they are living in is one where the elected Democratic President is not the legitimate President.  In spite of the fact that there is overwhelming evidence that all the claims that Republicans have made concerning the election being stolen and there being widespread fraud are false, they still believe the Big Lie.  This Big Lie has been started, promoted, and repeated by former President Trump, his supporters and the sycophantic mass media(Fox, OANN, Newsmax, social media, etc) for the last year.  These Republicans firmly believe the Big Lie, or for whatever reason conspire to support it for cynical self promoting purposes.

 

What this results in is the inability to even approach compromise.  If 45% of the country doesn't accept the result of the election, then there is no starting point in their minds to even consider compromise.  Their reality therefore only accepts any method of denying the legitimacy of the current

government.  Taken to the extreme, which of course was the result of months of the Big Lie leading to the disaster of January 6th, it leads to the armed insurrection of the Capitol, the deaths of at least 6 people and serious injury of 146 people.

 

What is so incomprehensible is the abdication of their oaths of office on the part of 45 Republican Senators and over 150 Republican Congressmen in the House of Representatives.  They rose to deny the Electoral College results of the election...in effect supporting the insurrection and the denial of the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power.  Even after the riot that actually put the Vice President in mortal danger in addition to exposing their own vulnerability, they still rose to support the lie of the stolen election.  They essentially rejected the peaceful transfer of power--a hallmark of our system of government.

 

After a handful of legislators in the House rose to call out Trump for his incitement immediately after the mob riot, they now have backed away from their support of accountability.  Now 45 senators have denied the need for accountability for Trump by claiming the impeachment of Trump is unconstitutional--a process argument that ignores the need for accountability.

 

To be sure, Trump is really only the worst symptom of the Republican reality.  Republicans now continue to expend all their energy in support of a lie and fealty to a person who trades in incitement and insurrection. They believe that only in this way can they maintain their office and avoid being 'primaried' by Trump and the Republican base.  The current Republican party, (with the exception of 10 brave Republicans who voted for impeachment in the House), believes only in their own reality of poisonous extremism.  They are not interested in anything bi-partisan because they simply don't accept the results of the election.  By taking that position, they have abdicated their responsibility of their oaths of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

 

It is therefore impossible to actually move forward as a country when half the legislature and half the

populace reject the concept of democracy and the rule of law.  This is something relatively unseen for the past 170 years in the United States.  We haven't had a similar situation since the 1850s in the period leading up to the Civil War when supporting slavery was more important to half the country than the notion of preserving our democracy.

In that case, how do we proceed as a republic?

 

The only path left open to Constitutional patriots who must face the major problems of the pandemic, the economy and the restoration of democratic principles is to appeal to those Republicans who still have a moral compass and are able to accept the reality that the rest of us accept.   Those who stand with Adam Kinzinger and other Republicans who support https://www.country1st.com/ ; Liz Cheney and all those who value truth and democracy must partner with Democrats to try to save our republic.  The Trumpists who accept white supremacy, violent insurrection, and allegiance to a terribly flawed human being over allegiance to their country must be exposed and rejected for what they are.   If this new dangerous Republican party of Trump is allowed to regain power, democracy as we know it will disappear.