Salon: Republicans are no longer a political party. They're a mob

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

What did they have in common? Three things: They were white, almost to a man and woman, they were supporters of Donald Trump, and they were Republicans. They are, in fact, the Republican Party. That's why the political party that once nominated Abraham Lincoln isn't even a party anymore. It's a mob. They were there at the Capitol to do what their members of congress and senators were already at work doing in the well of the House of Representatives: attempting to block the certification of electoral ballots, trying to claim that the election was fraudulent and that it had been stolen from Donald Trump. Their aims were identical. Inside and outside the Capitol, they were there for Donald Trump.

Their president had sent them, directing them to "walk down to the Capitol" in his speech on the Ellipse. They didn't have to be told what to do when they got there. They understood what Trump was telling them. They were his voters, the lot of them. They were the people who put him in the White House. They voted for the Republican representatives and senators who were at the very moment of Trump's speech trying to overturn the election of Joe Biden. They were the Republican Party, and they were a riotous, violent mob.

Have you asked yourself why you have heard only a handful of Republicans criticize the mob that yelled "fight for Trump," and "hang Mike Pence," and "we're coming for you Pelosi"? Oh, a few Republicans like Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois have stood up to the mob, and because they did, their fellow Republicans are moving to censure them and run against them and beat them in primaries when they run for office again next year. The rest of them — in effect, the entire Republican Party — have remained silent. Have you heard even one of the Republicans who voted to support Trump's bogus claims in the House and Senate criticize the mob for assaulting 81 Capitol police officers and 58 members of the D.C. Metropolitan police force? Those are the numbers of cops who reported being injured during the attack on the Capitol, according to a document filed in federal court in Washington by the Department of Justice this week. Have you seen any television footage of Republican members of the House or Senate displaying the damage done to their desks or offices by the mob? Have you seen even one of them stand next to one of the shattered leaded-glass windows in the doors to the House chamber and point to the damage and denounce the people who committed that crime? Did even one of them hold a press conference and denounce the attack on the Capitol by a mob waving Trump flags and screaming "Fight for Trump"?

No, you haven't, because the Republicans in the House and Senate know they can't criticize the people who assaulted the Capitol and turned the chambers of both houses into crime scenes — because all that damage was done by the mob, not just in Donald Trump's name, in an attempt to overturn the election, but in their name too. Those congressmen and congresswomen and senators who stood on the floors of their respective chambers only a couple of hours after they had been overrun by a mob and voted to reject the electoral ballots for Joe Biden in the states of Arizona and Pennsylvania — they believed (or pretended to believe) the fantasies about fraud and stolen ballots and Dominion voting machines and Hugo Chavez just like the mob believed them.

https://www.salon.com/2021/01/30/republicans-are-no-longer-a-political-party-theyre-a-mob/

The Republican party. Chock full o' nuts.

[hatrack]

8. In the rear with the gear (and the teenage sex slaves and blow) . . .

That's been Shitstain's story his whole life.

I'm trying to imagine him engaging in anything that would require actual physical or moral courage.

I'm failing to do so.

[uponit7771]

2. K&R, and the ones who are inciting the mob are no longer interested in democracy

[Kid Berwyn]

3. Lucian K. Truscott is TOPS!

Great patriot. Great writer. Great human being.

Plus, he went to church with Jimi Hendrix.

https://www.salon.com/2018/12/24/a-very-60s-christmas-eve/

[tanyev]

4. Funny how they've been denying climate change for decades,

but the unmitigated bullshit of Qanon swept through the party in less than 5 years.

[msfiddlestix]

14. good point and well said.

[appmanga]

6. Not just a mob...

...but a desperate mob.

Republicans officeholders are no longer interested in governance or legislating beyond suppressing the votes of their opposition. The one legislative action they can be counted on to pursue, trickle-down economics, has been an abject failure for all but the very rich, and now that the spotlight of the party's Jim Crow agenda is being pointed out quite loudly, even big money is reluctant to bankroll their benefactors.

What's happened here is Democrats have essentially conquered the Republicans in the so-called marketplace of ideas. Democrats have been right and Republicans, time after time, have been proven wrong. Now that just about all the boogeymen of the culture wars have been put to rest, they've sold out to the lunatics to become the party of Grievance, Obstruction, and Psychosis. The more democratic America is so painful to these people, they'd rather brandish guns and revel in the cuckoo-land of conspiracy theories.

[BarbD]

9. Beautifully stated.

[mdbl]

7. And they did it all for trump?!@!@? Worthless POS trump

That still boggles my mind. Of course it's been boggled since the 2015 when this country gave that bloated worthless POS Putin asset the keys to the white house.

[live love laugh]

10. They're the equivalent of street gangs-- replete with the red caps, flags and guns. nt

[raccoon]

11. Thanks for posting. Great article. Nt

[Hermit-The-Prog]

12. The Radical Republican Reich, formerly the Republican Party, is a terrorist gang.

[badboy67]

13. Simply can not overstate the impact of uncontested rightwing propaganda posing as "news" in

creating this situation and the danger it represents to the Nation going forward.

[rwsanders]

15. Did you mean "a mob" or "the mob"?

Just asking.