Thread by @RandyResist

From Heather Cox Richardson

“I see people asking many times why the Republicans are bending over for Trump, what does he have over them?

That’s the wrong way to look at it.

It’s not JUST TRUMP. 1/19

Look at everything that is going on through the lens of the Republican leaders giving up on democracy because they have lost the tide of demographics.

They have publicly discussed this amongst themselves for many years.2/19

I believe it was David Frum who said that if the Republicans could not win control via democracy, they’d abandon democracy before abandoning conservatism.3/19

I’d take it further and say that the Republican leadership and their billionaire and Dominionist donors have cynically decided that they will take control no matter how. 4/19

So, they stole the presidency and are busy now decimating our Federal government.

Watch what people do vs what they say. 5/19

They’re keeping up a very thin veneer of normalcy while doing extremely abnormal things.. such as diverting our military budget to pay for a wall.. turning our Education Department against public education.. 6/19

destroying the EPA and protection of natural resources, attacking our allies and NATO, on and on with unthinkable actions, including a massive tax cut for those who need it least despite the effects on our financial solvency. 7/19

Meanwhile, they’ve taken over all of the levers of enforcement while holding the House hostage, refusing to take their bills to the Senate.8/19

When the Speaker of the House stands face to face with a sitting president in the White House and publicly accuses him of treason and it barely causes a ripple in this country, I frankly am stunned.9/19

Do liberal Americans have what it takes to overcome this bloodless coup by the Republicans? The Republicans are using our own system of government and our institutions against us.10/19

Yet I see people fanning themselves at the dreadful feelings they have, saying they are “exhausted” by Republicans and Trump, vs able to call this what it is: 11/19

The theft of the presidency with intention to have the same kind of elections Putin holds, going forward.

A great deal of focus and skill went into stealing the presidency in 2016. .12/19

I can only imagine what valuable lessons were learned by that success.

They will be even better at it in 2020 yet our side can’t even admit what happened. 13/19

Our side pretends that the Republicans still respect democracy, even as they lie to us boldly every day, ignore norms, protocols and laws and continue to purge our federal scientific employees, our State Department, our FBI and intelligence agencies, and now even our MILITARY.14

It may not yet be bloody, and you may not see it as sudden, so you dislike me calling the Republican takeover a coup.15/19

I DO see it as sudden, as in the minute Trump was sworn in, the Republican leadership knew exactly who they were going to put where, to tear down our federal agencies, and they’ve moved very swiftly in doing so,16/19

plus extremely swiftly in stuffing our federal judiciary with right wing toadies..17/19

Just because they have purged people and persecuted them vs arresting them or shooting them doesn’t make this any less a coup, to me.

The term “bloodless coup” has existed since Napoleon, in 1799. 18/19

Yes, we must defeat Trump.

But we must also neuter the Republican Party. 😡”
<end> 19/19
Heather Cox Richardson