The GOP response to the verdict is the scariest moment in modern American history
If Republicans won't accept the determination of a jury, they'll never accept the outcome of the election.
Former Republican consultant Stuart Stevens wrote a book titled, “It was all a lie: How the Republican Party became Donald Trump.” The GOP’s response to the Trump conviction just validates that premise. The Republican Party was never an honest party. It is based on power, money, and race, not values. They will do whatever is necessary to win elections.
Listening to them today is the scariest moment in modern American history. A major political party is working to discredit the justice system, turning the verdict into a political issue that blames Joe Biden for the action of the New York attorney general and twelve citizens of that state. They will use that rationale to crush other norms and institutions that have protected our freedom and democracy.
Republicans are treating the verdict with startling message discipline. From Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to House Speaker Mike Johnson to North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, Republican leaders are calling the verdict a miscarriage of justice and blaming Democrats. The language is eerily similar. With their expansive media ecosystem, I’m sure talk radio, Fox News, and the hundreds of right-wing websites are echoing the sentiment in almost identical terms.
Nobody in the Republican leadership has the integrity to call out Trump for his misdeeds or to accept the decision of the jury. If they won’t heed the judicial outcome, there’s no way they will accept the outcome of the election in November. They have learned well the lesson that if a lie is repeated loudly enough it becomes truth.
Almost all of these people knew who Trump was when he began his campaign in 2015. They knew he was grifter and conman unfit for office and said so. Mitch McConnell blamed Trump for January 6. Trump’s own attorney general Bill Barr said that the former president probably committed crimes but he will support Trump anyway. What is wrong with these people?
The GOP narrative on Trump has been shifting since the beginning. When he was impeached the second time, Mitch McConnell and other Republicans claimed that justice should be left to the courts. Now that Trump’s in court, they cast doubt on the legitimacy of the justice system.
Republicans have been destroying norms since Democrats elected Barack Obama. They stole two Supreme Court seats, one by eliminating the filibuster. They refused to hold Trump accountable for trying to withhold money to Ukraine until the country launched an investigation into Hunter Biden. They refused to impeach Trump for the insurrection. They refuse to admit the legitimacy of our democracy.
Republicans are clearly not honest brokers. They are acting more like authoritarian mob bosses with a propaganda machine than an American political party. Trump is a criminal who has been convicted. If they disagree, they should be urging an appeal, not attacking the jurors and the justice system.
The Republican Party lacks respect for the rule of law. They lack respect for democracy. They lack respect for the Constitution. And they lack respect for the promise of America. All they care about is power.
Precisely. Thank you for this column.
Imagine what the cultist reaction of the GOP would be if a former Democratic president had been convicted of 34 felonies. Just imagine that. Roll that thought around in your mind for 10 seconds. We know what these fools would be saying.
A signficant fraction of this country has gone mad. Their leaders know that what the party wants (getting rid of Social Security, installing a dictator, jettisoning the rule of law) is so out of the mainstream that they will gaslight and hoodwink their fellow Americans seven days a week.
This is not the America of my youth or even most of my adult years, and I turn 80 in a few days. This is Germany of the 1930s. I love the Germans. I served in the Army there. But Germany lost its day in the 1930s, and at least some of us fear the U.S. is going down the same path.
The narrative already is being heard that the 2024 presidnetial election will be crooked and poor little Donnie will be "robbed again."
It is virtually impossible to reason with the cultists. Any so-called political leader wanting to respresent these louts is mad.
I may or may not live to see democracy and the rule of law jettisoned or saved. Those of you who survive me must keep fighting for them, keep pushing back against the true "Big Steal," the one seeking to turn our nation into a 1930s Germany. We are in very big trouble.
The governor of Virginia, an educated man who knows better, just trashed the New York verdict. He just disqualified himself for public office. He has a lot of company on that count.
Pardon my weighing in again. But there is something fundamentally wrong when a convicted felon can be a presidential nominee and serve as president of the United States. Yet a convicted felon in many states is unable to vote in a presidential election. Any party that would nominate a felon for a position of public trust should be cast out of the public square and shamed in recorded history. Forever. Looking at you, GOP!