Trump, a guy who's never won the popular vote, twice impeached, rated the worst president ever, serially corrupt, a traitor, rapist, racist, gave the GOP a perfect out on Jan 6. They could've easily just turned the page. But instead they said, "Nope, we'll stick with him."
Some might see this as a sign of Trumpian power, fear of his wrath, as implied recently by Sen. Lindsey Graham. But it's not that. It's the collective recognition of the weakness of a party that's lost the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections.
It's the weakness of a party that sees the demographic handwriting on the wall. It's the weakness of a party that knows the one thing that can do them in is a free and open democracy functioning as it should, being guided by the will of the people.
Trump has given the GOP license to speak their fears. Only an amoral leader grants them the ability to seek to undermine our democracy, to blatantly stoke racism and division, to lie when the truth is simply no longer their friend.
Only Trump makes purging voices of reason an option, makes elevating extremists desirable. At least that seems to be what the GOP is thinking. Signing on to Trump for the long haul is a sign of their intellectual and moral bankruptcy and their profound desperation.
He is a sign that they do not believe in themselves, that they can win by playing fair, that they can win without corruption, that they can win without racism, that they can win without riding a tsunami of disinformation and embracing foreign enemies to aid their cause.
Unfortunately, the weakness that fuels Trumpism and the depravity of Trumpism itself, while a manifestation of GOP fears, is also a sign that they have bought into the idea that their principle goal must be to gut American democracy.
Rather than rejecting Trump's coup attempt as a bridge too far, the party that has defended it and attacked its critics is saying, "This is what we must be, this is who we must be if we are to survive."
And weak as they are, it is not a foregone conclusion that they will lose. They are right to believe they have a chance at winning in the midterms and then rigging the system so they can scuttle or undo any Democratic presidential victory or hill majority from occurring again.
Their weakness is driving their willingness to do whatever it takes no matter how un-American or illegal and it is giving them a sense of urgency that they believe their opponents lack.
Democrats must recognize that and prove the Republicans wrong. We must ensure we cultivate and build that sense of urgency, that we recognize this, even now, as normalcy seems to have returned to the White House, as a life and death struggle for our system.
The response to the Jan 6 coup attempt, the cover-up and eventual embrace of its premise, is a clear sign that it will someday be seen not as the end of Trumpism it could have been but as a turning point, a moment of escalation & that it ushered in an era of even graver threats.
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