The Moral Desolation of the GOP – The Atlantic

Yesterday evening, the leaders of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol opened their public hearingshearings that will show, in the words of vice chair Liz Cheney, that Donald Trump oversaw a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power.

Or, as committee chair Bennie Thompson put it, Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy.

Read: Trump gets the January 6 trial he long dodged

The violent assault on the Capitol was the culmination of that effort; Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack, Cheney said. And he reveled in what he had done. The more carnage, the better.

That Donald Trump acted the way he did was hardly a surprise; some of us had been warning about his borderless corruptions and disordered personality since before he became president. Its hard to imagine that theres any ethical line this broken, embittered, vindictive man wouldnt cross, including telling White House staff that Vice President Mike Pence deserved to be hanged by the violent mob that stormed the Capitol, because Pence wouldnt refuse to certify the election.

But the story of the Trump presidency isnt only about the corruptions and delusions of one man; its also about the party he represents. Trump recast the Republican Party, of which I was long a proud member, in his image. His imprint on the GOP is, in important respects, even greater than Ronald Reagans, despite Reagan being a successful two-term president.

Other presidents have been accused of wrongdoing, even high crimes and misdemeanors, Peter Baker wrote in The New York Times, but the case against Donald J. Trump mounted by the bipartisan House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol described not just a rogue president but a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang onto power at all costs.

It was bad enough that many Republicans were complicit in Trumps wrongdoings when he was president; that they continue to be complicit 17 months after Trump left the presidency is an even more damning indictment. Theyve continued to embrace Trump even though hes a loser.

Republicans stayed loyal to Richard Nixon far longer than they should have, but at least they abandoned him after the smoking gun tape was released that proved his involvement in the Watergate cover-up. What Trump has done is worse even than what Nixon did and yet Republicansdespite the case against Trump being far more comprehensive and detailed than we knew in the immediate aftermath of January 6continue to propagate his lies and either defend his seditious conduct or act as if it never happened. Its old news, were told. Nothing to see here. Time to move on.

Not so fast.

The sheer scale of Donald Trumps depravity is unmatched in the history of the American presidency, and the Republican Partythe self-described party of law and order and constitutional conservatives, of morality and traditional values, of patriotism and Lee Greenwood songsmade it possible. It gave Trump cover when he needed it. It attacked his critics when he demanded it. It embraced his nihilistic ethic. It amplified his lies. When House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthya man who for a few fleeting hours after the January 6 insurrection dared to speak critically of Donald Trumptraveled to Mar-a-Lago a few days later to kiss his ring, it was an act of self-abasement that was representative of his party, his morally desolate party.

David Frum: The one witness at the January 6 hearing who matters most

Make no mistake: Republicans are the co-creators of Trumps corrupt and unconstitutional enterprise. The great majority of them are still afraid to break fully with him. They consider those who have, like Liz Cheney, to be traitors to the party. They hate Cheney because she continues to hold up a mirror to them. They want to look away. She wont let them.

Perhaps the most withering sentences of Cheneys extraordinary presentation last night were these: Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.

Those in the Republican Party and on the American right who defended Trump and continue to do sowho went silent in the face of his transgressions, who rationalized their weakness, who went along for the ride for the sake of powermust know, deep in their hearts, that what she said is true. And it will always be true.

Their dishonor is indelible.

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The Moral Desolation of the GOP - The Atlantic