Trump's Second Impeachment Was the Usual Freak Show for House Republicans [View all]

[Zorro]

After four-plus years standing behind this criminal, his party still isn’t ready to quit him.

By Michael Tomasky

So now, after four-plus years of praising Donald Trump’s “exquisite” leadership; four-plus years of waving away lines like the one about finding the Second Amendment solution for Hillary Clinton by saying he was just joking; and lately, after nine weeks of mostly being accomplices to Trump’s insane claims about election fraud; after Trump has torn the country in two and bullied local Republicans trying to do their jobs and instigated a riot that sought to kill his own vice president and did kill a police officer, exactly 10 members of the Republican Party out of 207 voting in the House of Representatives went on record as being willing to impeach Trump.

For most of America, the week since the riots has if anything intensified the horror. With each new day, we see shocking videos showing that some of the intruders knew the Capitol floor plan. We learn new details about just how close to danger or death some members and staffers were. And of course we see Trump himself down in Texas once again deny that he had anything to do with what happened after he’d exhorted the true believers he’d summoned that “you have to show strength.”

But for House Republicans, the past seven days have had the opposite effect—they’ve rallied and realized that if they just issue a few phony, perfunctory denunciations of the violent rioters, they can quickly get back to blaming the left for everything and accusing Democrats of somehow being the real supporters of violence.

So the impeachment proceeding was the usual freakshow. Louie Gohmert warned that a vote like this meant the end of the republic. Tom McClintock of California wore a mask that said “This Mask Is as Useless as My Governor.” Marjorie Taylor Greene wore a mask that said “Censored”—while she was giving a speech on national television carried on at least five channels. Matt Gaetz went full Matt Gaetz, mentioning the “Biden crime family” and shooting a glance over to the Democratic side while muttering that Republicans were not going to forget about that. Steve Chabot of Ohio, who I haven’t seen a picture of in a few years, is now wearing his hair like Trump’s (I mean, creepily so, almost like the way Jennifer Jason Leigh did with Bridget Fonda in Single White Female).

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-second-impeachment-was-the-usual-freak-show-for-house-republicans