Things the GOP did not find "divisive": Launching an insurrection against the US government, seeking to disenfranchise 81 million Americans, seeking to negate the votes of entire states, seeking to negate the votes of African Americans, attacking the Capitol...
...killing Capitol police officers, inciting a riots that claimed five lies, participating in the largest act of domestic terrorism in US history, hunting down Congresspeople in the halls of Congress, supporting and defending white supremacists...
...supporting and defending Neo-Nazis, turning US federal force against peaceful demonstrators across the country, calling Mexicans rapists, discriminating against Muslims, putting children in cages, ending protections for children born innocently in the United States...
...promoting economic policies that help only the rich in America and fostering the worst inequality in our history, seeking to stigmatize those who sought to do the right thing to protect America from a deadly pandemic...
contributing to the spread of a disease that has killed hundreds of thousands--disproportionately people of color & the elderly, seeking policies that deny COVID relief to states with Dem leadership, seeking to help only those close to the GOP leadership with COVID relief...
...repeatedly attacking the credibility of the FBI, the CIA and other intelligence agencies, supporting and collaborating with foreign enemies, lying tens of thousands of times to the American people, calling for Hillary Clinton to be locked up...
...obstructing all judicial nominees from a Democratic president, countless hours of expensive, pointless Benghazi investigations, countless hours of expensive, pointless investigations and unfounded conspiracy theory mongering about Hillary Clinton's emails...
...calling for the impeachment of Bill Clinton for telling a single lie (while Donald Trump has lied more than 20,000 times), unending attacks from Trump on the media as "the enemy of the people"...
...calling Democrats socialists (when they are not), communists (when they are not), pretending the left is behind riots caused by right wing extremists...and the list goes on and on and on. Divisiveness and attacks on US unity are the stock in trade of the modern GOP.
Accountability, patriotism, law and order, defending our national security and preserving the ideals of the Founders, things they like to say they are for, have become the polar opposites of that for which they truly stand.
There is one reason and one reason only they oppose seeking accountability for Trump's seditious plot and the attempted coup against the government: They know they are culpable, they know their leaders sought not just to divide the country but to tear its government down.
They oppose impeachment and serious consequences for all involved because that would mean many of their leaders would be stripped of their ability to serve in the US government (per the 14th Amendment) and face potential serious criminal liability.
They know that seeking justice and defending the country and its institutions and its principles puts them squarely in the cross-hairs...and so they are desperately, if feebly, trying to deflect attention. Don't fall for it.

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More from @djrothkopf

14 Jan
2 impeachments sounds bad. But Trump's getting off light. There are legitimate reasons he could have been impeached at least 7 times...
1. Violation of campaign finance laws (M. Cohen case)
2. Violation of campaign finance laws/collaboration w/foreign intel service (Russia)
3. Obstruction of justice (see Mueller)
4. Corruption, self-dealing, violation of emoluments clause
5. Gross mismanagment, corruption associated with the COVID outbreak
6. Ukraine bribery scandal (impeachment 1)
7. Inciting insurrection (impeachment 2)
There are of course many things we don't know that could also be impeachable from security violations (with Putin and others), other instances of seeking foreign help w/election plans, tax fraud, other forms of corruption.
Read 4 tweets
12 Jan
@JonathanTurley suggests the founders would not react so quickly against a president who led an insurrection. Washington led an army of 13,000 people against a small group of farmers who wouldn't pay their taxes on whiskey.
One founder actually did lead an insurrection. His name was Aaron Burr. He was arrested and charged with treason. He walked on technical reasons and was already out of office so impeachment was not the right option, but he ended up in exile for years afterward.
(Beautifully, while in exile Burr lived in a house on Craven Street in London.) Turley also says that Trump's incitement to insurrection was protected speech. This is beyond ludicrous and shows a lack of understanding of the law that would get him kicked out of any law school.
Read 11 tweets
10 Jan
This week, I can't help but remember the warnings of the great Village Voice journalist Wayne Barrett, who started warning the world about Trump in the 1970s and who first exposed his sleaze and diseased character. Barrett died the day before Trump was inaugurated.
Here's one of Barrett's first pieces from 1979. villagevoice.com/2018/10/30/don…
And here's one of the best remembrances of Barrett that followed his death, from @POLITICOMag by @michaelkruse. politico.com/magazine/story…
Read 5 tweets
8 Jan
Just had to turn off CNN. Can't listen to one more pol bloviate about how Trump shouldn't be impeached because it will make healing harder. Have they not been paying attention? We got here because there have been no consequences for Trump's abuses...or those of predecessors.
Without consequences for Trump and those who supported this sedition and those who enabled his corruption and those who collaborated with a foreign enemy and those who obstructed justice THERE WILL BE NO HEALING.
The impunity of the empowered is what has fueled our current crisis & enabled them to inflame political divisions. Lincoln was wrong to let Confederate traitors off the hook. Ford was wrong to let Nixon off the hook. GHWBush was wrong to let the Iran-Contra crowd off the hook.
Read 5 tweets
8 Jan
If the (erroneous) Office of Legal Counsel memo saying president's can't be indicted for crimes while in office had not been written, hundreds of thousands of Americans would still be alive today.
If Rod Rosenstein had not told Mueller to stay out of investigating Trump's finances and to narrowly define his investigation, the coup attempt would never have taken place.
If Mueller had not gone along with Rosenstein and had followed all of the investigations into Trump's ties to the Russians and his finances, we would not have seen months of attempts to attack and weaken our democracy.
Read 21 tweets
31 Dec 20
140 elected members of Congress who have publicly stated they will seek to overturn the results of an election judged free and fair by every single court or legal authority that has examined it. It is a devastating and profoundly dangerous development.
The GOP is now actively opposed to democracy, our Constitution and our values. Under Donald Trump it has become America's first fascist party. Overstatement. Consider the dictionary definition from Meriam-Webster:
"A political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation & often race above the individual & that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic & social regimentation, & forcible suppression of opposition."
Read 5 tweets

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