Greetings. I am a voting constituent in rural west Texas.
Watching the articles of impeachment being delivered to the Senate last night was depressing. Depressing that it happened a second time. Depressing that it was allowed to happen a second time.
Now, in the interim between an initial solidarity of Congress to condemn the traitorous actions of our president and his supporters who stormed the Capitol, killing in their path, murderous in their intent, comes the predictable pendulum swing.
A Republican call for unity. To get past events of January 6. To move on. For the American people.
You shouldn’t need reminding that 70% of the American people approve of impeachment. And conviction. So your calls for unity are yet another distraction from the well-known fact of you wanting to provide cover for Mr. Trump and his assault on our government. By any means necessary.
Example. The Oregon Republican Party actually released a resolution stating: “The violence at the Capitol was a ‘false flag’ operation designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters, and all conservative Republicans; this provided the sham motivation to impeach President Trump in order to advance the Democratic goal of seizing total power.”
They go on to say that the resolution is just the start. The state party is working with a “patriot network of RNC members to coordinate our activities and to coordinate our messaging” for their own similar resolutions.
I know times have changed. But did any of you every actually think, even 4 years ago, that absolving a president of such actions as Mr. Trump displayed in the run up to January 6 would ever be a given? That we would have elected officials who actively participate in the mass delusion of QAnon? Elected officials who perhaps even actively worked to assist in the actions of insurrection of January 6?
If the people in power who swore to protect our democracy choose instead to look the other way and just let others take care of the fallout, or discount the severity of the rot in the system, or just cry foul about the process and not about the actions that led to the process we are becoming a failed nation.
Or as I also read “The Oregon state GOP also compared the Capitol riot to the burning of the German Reichstag in February 1933 — a flash point that allowed Adolf Hitler to seize on the fears of German citizens to consolidate power. Hitler was able to pass emergency legislation that, he claimed, was required to keep the country safe — which included suspending freedom of speech, assembly and press.”
How’s that for a pendulum swing?
