1. People like Graham declaring that Trump lost the election doesn't merit an honorable mention in profiles in courage. What Romney said about leaders needing to tell the truth is more consequential. But what would that mean in practice? That's what Republicans must consider.
2. First, it means abandoning conspiracy theories that have been literally the foundation of the Republican Party for the last decade, the toxins that are spread constantly on Fox, talk radio, online, and mainlined into peoples' social media feeds through profit-driven algorithms
3. Could every Republican leader say these things? Barack Obama was born in the US. Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump. Joe Biden didn't intervene in Ukrainian politics to help his son. There is no cabal of child sex traffickers somehow running the world.
4. Those are just the easy steps - walking back from the brink of tolerating madness, from allowing the grievances of your "base" to be transformed into mass mobilization through an ever-escalating politics of Us versus Them. One that obliterates truth.
5. To be serious about governing in a democracy, though, there has to be a deeper commitment to truth that is separate from ideology, or legitimate differences about things like the size of government, the efficacy of regulation, or the conduct of foreign policy.
6. Could every Republican leader say things like this? Climate change is real, it is an existential crisis, and it is caused by human beings. Then let's have a debate about what solutions must be government initiated or market driven.
7. Or, more urgently. That COVID is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. That wearing masks and social distancing will save many thousands of lives. That vaccines are part of the answer, and that those who tell you otherwise are wrong.
8. Then, even more difficult I'm sure, the hard truths about America. That structural racism is real. That Black people or Muslims over-running the U.S. Capitol would have been met with violence, and never would have been permitted to enter and exit with such ease.
9. Again, these are just some basics. And no, I'm not optimistic that Republicans will do this. But some can. I hope they do. It's a starting point to restoring the sense of objective reality upon which democracy depends, which can be the basis for real debates and compromises
10. Because what happened yesterday is what happens when a major political party, a governing party with a massive propaganda machine lies relentlessly and cynically to tens of millions of people every single day for years.
11. Donald Trump is the apotheosis of this brand of politics, but he is not alone, nor are those people who attempted an insurrection yesterday. If this isn't addressed, it will happen - in different forms - again and again and again.
12. By all means, disagree with Democrats on all manner of things. Fight, passionately, over things. But not over truth - what is real and what is isn't. Consider the insanity of telling your voters for months that they won an election that wasn't even particularly close.
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