Headlines Highlight GOP Depravity
Two headlines from Tuesday’s Washington Post tell a sad tale about American political and civil society in the Age of Trump. Worse yet is the fact that I heard not a whimper from any Republican elected official to reprimand the Orange bully. A bully who would crumple to the first person to really stand up to him and get in his face.
But we’re waiting…
Violent political threats surge as 2024 begins, haunting American democracy - WAPO, 1/9/24
Election workers, elected and professional public officials, judges, and prosecutors are receiving death threats with astonishing frequency. Several judges involved in Trump’s various trials (the NY civil trial for business fraud; the DC trial for attempting to steal the 2020 election; the Colorado Supreme Court justices who ruled Trump could be taken off the ballot, and the Maine Secretary of state who similarly ruled) have been victims of threats and/or “swatting.” So has Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Although people in both parties have been victimized, it is almost always being perpetrated by right-wingers targeting Trump’s perceived opponents.
You can read the article here.
Trump warns of ‘bedlam,’ declines to rule out violence after court hearing - WAPO, 1/9/24
Speaking to reporters after an appeals court hearing on his claim to be immune from charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, Trump said of his supporters:
“I think they feel this is the way they’re going to try and win, and that’s not the way it goes. It’ll be bedlam in the country. It’s a very bad thing. It’s a very bad precedent. As we said, it’s the opening of a Pandora’s box.”
This was a clear set of instructions to those supporters – should he lose the next election, it will be because of the charges filed against him, and they should respond by creating “bedlam.”
You can read the article here.
Meanwhile Trump and his young sycophant from upstate NY, Elise Stefanik, bemoan the fates of the “J-6 hostages.” Yeah, this from the party of “law and order” that claims to “back the blue” (except on 1/6/21).
The reality of Trump and Stefanik's Jan. 6 'hostages'- NBC News
Read and/or watch it here.
Want more GOP depravity? How about the Maryland Republican Party placing a J-6 rioter on the state’s election board…until he was outed.
Maryland Elections Board member arrested on Jan. 6 riot charges, resigns
According to the WAPO, a man nominated to the state’s top election board by Republicans last year wore a ‘Stop the Steal’ button while breaching the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Apparently he was one of the people that online sleuths were able to help the FBI identify and ultimately arrest. I guess Speaker Johnson didn’t get those faces blurred out in time to save Mr. Ayala.
…and finally,
These 15 GOP-led states are rejecting summer food aid for children – The Hill
This is reminiscent of all of the Republican-ruled states that refused to expand Medicaid when the Affordable Care Act offered Federal dollars to pay the bills, hurting their own constituents (who later took matters into their own hands in several states that allow citizen-generated referendums). First Rs let the child tax credit, which pulled many kids and families out of poverty in the aftermath of COVID, expire, now they refuse funds authorized by Congress for food aid for poor children.