The Republican Party has historically been committed to national security, global stability, law and order, small government and limited regulation as a rational marketplace equilibrium.
Yet today’s Republican Party is taking on water.
I am concerned.
Swept into a maelstrom by MAGA extremists and a “get crazy” politics resembling “the Mods” & “the Rockers,” British thug gangs of 1960, MAGA Republicans lie well beyond the pale of rational deliberation and thought. It is a wild-eyed pack of sans- culottes which, if they are unchecked, spell disaster for American Democracy.
I am a Democrat and have been since 1972. The MAGA vortex is a startling social and political phenomenon, which has vomited this guy Trump onto the center stage of national and world affairs. As bad enough as that is, I concede this vortex is bad for moderate Republicans who want to work and negotiate with well-intentioned Democrats and Independents. This stands out clearly on a brightly candled political stage in which the current leading Republican contender, Trump, is under state and federal criminal indictment.
Trump, a borderline personality who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, denies culpability for any and every wrongdoing. His MAGA mob is an inflamed rightwing putch who quench their political thirst with a variety of chew liver, spit blood tough guys in the vein of Stallone, Eastwood, Schwarzenegger, Siegel and now, of course, Don the Con. They want to fight and brawl and scowl and punch, but they don’t want to get hurt and they certainly don’t want to be held accountable for their criminal acts. This tact will cut the legs out from under the Republican Party in 2024, alienating moderates and those swing voters who cast their ballots for Joe Biden in 2020.
Let me provide an immediate example.
The MAGA extremists have inserted culture wars into the National Defense Authorization Act. They did this by cutting away travel costs for military personnel who must seek abortions out of state. This is politically toxic for the GOP. Why? There has been steady and far reaching public support for abortion rights throughout the United States. This trend is combined with an ill-advised, rotten effort to stop funding the military with an amendment that has absolutely nothing to do with our national defense. Secondly, the unhindered operation of America’s national security structure has been stymied by Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, a senator whose savaging of reality has put on hold military promotions to key ranking military members.
Why? As mentioned above, Department of Defense travel support for service members seeking out of state abortions. Somehow this is toxic to MAGA world.
In the House of Representatives, MAGA extremists provided a street theater display by attacking the FBI, terming the bureau “weaponized,” better yet an anti- conservative attack unit. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has argued, without solid evidence, that the federal government’s agenda of conservative persecution should result in a punitive slap of the wrist for the FBI in the form of a slashed, greatly reduced FBI budget.
Yet, paradoxically, while most Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate have not directly opposed and aggressively stood up to Trump, it is clear that Trump is a drag on GOP senators and representatives who have campaigned for election and re- election since 2020. Tuberville and Jordan are part and parcel of the madcap world of MAGA, “let’s out crazy each other” political stunts and inane idiocy. Yet this is tame when compared to a president who spread rancid lies about the validity of a federal election and deploys the national government to overturn the will of the American voter without consequence, similar to the antics of a Banana Republic dictator. The Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves at this. A coup d’etat a la a petty dictator such as Don the Con? Is anyone ready for this?
The men who preceded Trump, from Washington to Obama, had no qualms about accepting the will of the people in a general election. As for Trump, unlike the indictment by the State of New York, based on allegations of covering up hush money payments to a porn actress with whom he had an affair while married to Melania, and unlike Trump’s indictment for allegedly placing our nation’s highest levels of secure documents in deep compromise after leaving his term as president, the charges against Trump leveled on Thursday are the first to deal with malfeasance undertaken by a sitting president of the United States.
Trump did not have good faith reasons for contesting the 2020 election results. The plain facts are that Trump was pointedly told over and over again by his advisers and administration officials that his allegations of voter fraud, tampering and the bold-faced, pathetic lie that he won the election by a lot were false. He lost the election. Period. There was no fraud. Period.
Trump, as clearly indicated in the indictment, tried to defraud the United States with his miserably fallacious and maliciously intended claims. He had every reason to know that they were bogus. All of this was flung at the American people in his bid for and lust for power.
Pathetically, millions of Americans, for whatever reason, have received his arguments and hold them as bona fide. This is a threat to our democracy. Our democracy is under siege, our Constitution is berated, our norms assailed and the MAGA barbarians are at the gates. Please wake up America.
Brian Kilgannon
Carle Place
