What is it about the Republican legislators in Washington, D.C? It seems as if they just keep fighting for the Most Hated Politician award. Last week, The Atlantic wrote that Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) held the light-weight title. This week has a whole new winner, and he is really bad. He fights dirty.
The woman handing Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) his Bad Fellows Award was a columnist for Kentucky’s leading paper, The Lexington Herald-Leader. According to Linda Blackford, the Senate Minority Leader was oh so transparent when he threw his vote and the votes he would have brought along with him to freeing our ex.
The most hated politician managed to vote to acquit Donald Trump for a failed coup to take over the United States government and turn himself into a king. After all, who would not, really? Then, the senator gave what for him was an impassioned speech, raising his monotone a note or two on the scale and condemning Trump. He said that there was not enough time between when the House handed the Senate its case and President Joe Biden took office. Ergo, he said he could not try a private citizen for insurrection aka sedition, treason. It was the House’s fault. Of course, he lied.
Blackford accused the man from Kentucky who is addicted to power of letting:
‘His beloved Republican party has turned into a death cult in thrall to a pathetic and pathological egotist.’
One of McConnell’s problems has been that he believed his fellow Kentuckians were stupid. Blackford wrote:
‘Everyone sees through him now. He may have helped create the modern Republican party, but when it most needed saving, he was nowhere to be found. He could have given political cover to his colleagues to stand up to Trump and the attack on Jan. 6, but as I wrote before, the monster he helped create was no longer in his control.’
Then, the columnist got serious about what was truly one of the most atrocious acts in American History. It was really quite simple. Donald Trump refused to lose. He tried to change the courts, the state government, and even the entire infrastructure of our democracy.
Trump cultivated white supremacists as his private military and stoked their anger at being left behind when McConnell and like Republicans stole the middle-class and their constituents’ hope. He carefully laid the rally kindling. Trump worked for months and years to build the huge pyre of anger and threw gasoline on it over and over, loving it as the fire crackled and spit embers into the black night.
After that, it was easy to invite the disillusioned to DC, point them toward the capitol, and light the match. If it were not for the remarkable, wildly outnumbered Capitol Police and DC Police who literally gave their lives for our democracy, they would have reached our legislators. Vice President Mike Pence would still be hanging from the hangman’s scaffold they erected as a warning to anyone else who dared protest.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have been shot in the head, and both Democratic and Republican legislators’ blood would have stained the floors of those hallowed halls. Trump would be dictator.
Blackford continued:
‘The history books will be clear about those who coddled and engendered Trump’s madness in the name of political power.’
‘And in the end, he made sure that Trump would face no penalty or justice for whipping up a storm of white supremacist anger that attacked the U.S. Capitol and killed a police officer. McConnell gave a pass to white supremacy, a pass on attacking the U.S. Capitol. He gave so many passes to Trump that we are left with a country that is sick in mind and body.’
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
