Years ago, I heard that Romans punished murderers by forcing them to carry the corpse of their victims on their backs for as long as it took for them to become infected and die.
True or not, that’s the picture I get with Republicans like Bill Barr, Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell and many others who are so determined to cling to the party’s old ways while cultural and political earthquakes are threatening to destroy America as we know it.
When Trump came along as a no-nonsense outsider with a passion for winning “big league,” political curmudgeons were so enslaved to the status quo – how presidents should look, speak, and act – that they were completely blinded to his unusual virtues. Unable to adapt, they fixated on his unorthodox style as an intolerable vice.
“Trump was born for the current American crisis: the life-and-death struggle against the totalitarian enemy I call ‘woke communism,” said Thomas Klingenstein, Claremont Institute chairman, in his speech, Trump’s Virtues. “The ‘woke comms’ have seized every political, cultural, and economic center of power in the country from where they ruthlessly push their agenda. That agenda rests on the conviction that America is thoroughly bad (systemically racist) and must be destroyed.”
To beat back the crazies and tear down the stuff they were building, America needed a blunt object, not a precision tool. For voters, it was a no-brainer. So they picked the guy with the bat, axe, and sludge hammer over those carrying shiny scalpels and tweezers that broke when things got tough.
But instead of getting behind the man who voters picked, status quo Republicans quietly seethed, not only against Trump, but his voters. Rather than adjusting to the hard truths of the times, they wished for former days, budgeted for more tweezers, then waited for Trump to fail.
He didn’t.
In the face of psychotic Democrat opposition, Trump became one of the most effective presidents in American history. He fixed the borders, achieved energy independence, moved Israel’s embassy to Jerusalem, normalized relations between Arab countries, and fought loudly and unapologetically against anti-American critical race theory.
He “smoked the rats out of hiding places,” as Klingenstein put it, and distrusted the “experts” who made a “despotic mess” of America. He called Haiti a “sh*thole” and said Maxine Waters has a low IQ – two comments that were “uncouth … that most people agree with” but dare not say.
“Trump is a manly man,” said Klingenstein. “In the present times, when manhood is being stripped of its masculinity, traditional manhood, even when flawed, has much appeal. … Trump ripped apart people he thought were weak. Sometimes he went overboard, but his supporters forgave his excesses because it is in such short supply. … Courage never demands perfection.”
But tweezer Republicans couldn’t overlook his unorthodox style. Although he proved to be as conservative as Reagan, they still hated him. Quietly. Their political timidity demanded perfection.
So like liberals and leftists, these Republicans still refuse to come to terms with the fact that Trump’s agenda and no-nonsense style is now the life force of the Republican party.
Seething with contempt, they stubbornly cling to a dead Republican modus operandi that believes you can coast along until the next election while cuddling up to psychotic Democrats without dying from political gangrene.
As it looked like Trump’s running in 2024, Republicans like Barr and Cheney have joined the party to prevent his re-election. They want others to see him as the voodoo doll that political psychopaths portray him to be – a crazy, racist, homophobic, con man who can’t discipline himself long enough to stop yelling “fire” in crowded theaters.
The problem? The fire is real.
After legitimizing the Jan. 6 federal grand jury subpoenas of Trump top officials as “a significant event,” a nostalgic Barr told CBS reporter Catherine Herridge that, thanks to the excesses of progressive Democrats, 2024 could be like Reagan’s 1980 election that clinched three terms for Republicans.
“And I think we could do that again and really achieve a decisive victory with the right candidate, but I don’t think he [Trump] should be that candidate,” said Barr. “The day he’s elected, he’ll be a 78-year-old lame duck who is obviously bent on revenge more than anything else.”
Trump was right about Barr: “They ‘broke’ him.”
Dick Cheney also barfed up years of contempt for Trump, shoving it all in the first few seconds of a political ad for his daughter.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” he grumbled. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”
There’s only one word to explain such an asinine statement: Hate. We get it, Cheney. Please, go back to bed … and thanks for your service, sir.
When the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Monday, a seismic event that trumped all “dump Trump” schemes combined, a few strong Republicans spoke with the clarity the moment deserves. But “leader” Mitch McConnell was slow as a turtle. When events finally forced him to tweet, he tackled the job with a political tweezer. Sad.
Status quo Republicans, by their own free wills, have clung to a corpse far too long. Refusing to come to terms with America’s new and very dangerous situation, they’ve become good-as-dead D.C. creatures, infected from head to toe with political gangrene.
Monday’s FBI raid lit a powder keg, and it’s now smoldering. That raid was Biden and his collaborators seceding from the America we’ve known. They’ve shot the opening cannons on Sumter, they’re out for blood and getting it – from Trump and his supporters – and foolishly, they’re determined to never stop.
“Make no mistake,” said Klingenstein, “we are in the midst of a cold civil war. You cannot win a war unless you know you are in one. Weak men do anything to avoid admitting the hardest truths because they lack the resolve to do what truth demands from them.”
Trump supporters are behind him even more because political pyromaniacs are burning things to the ground, all over America, and no one’s stopping them. All this hoopla about Trump has never been all about Trump – “it’s about the fires, stupid.”
More than ever, we need strong, courageous Republican leaders. As Klingenstein has said, “Trump was born for the current American crisis.”
Status quo Republicans, if you are not resolved to step up and do what the hardest truths of our day demands, then let Trump do it. If you can’t get solidly behind the man who the majority of Republicans are rooting for then, please, get out of the way!
The status quo, especially after Monday’s raid, is officially dead. There is no going back.
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