Republican senators gave Trump a standing ovation at a caucus lunch and burst out laughing the moment the door closed. Whatever is holding this party together, it is not belief.
This is very close to the descriptions given by Germans who lived through the rise of Hitler. "It went drop by drop...sort of like an anesthetic," is a common refrain. Americans, however, are not as "good" at following rules or respecting authority as traditional Germans were--and that might be our salvation.
They follow their Fuhrer because they could personally lose financially if they didn’t ! Hitler would simply of had them shot … these bastards are as evil as trump ! Their allegiance is about cash nothing more !
They follow their Fuhrer because they could personally lose financially if they didn’t ! Hitler would simply of had them shot … these bastards are as evil as trump ! Their allegiance is up cash nothing more !
What a frightening assessment of those selected and elected senators!
I understand fear for self and family...I will NEVER understand the insanely blind-to-factual evidence the followers of this hollow man possess and proudly display.
I am left pondering and wondering what it will take to convince them.
Because I was a child during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, I have zero sympathy for the Republicans concerned for their families' "safety".
Black churches were BOMBED. Martin Luther King's house was BOMBED while Coretta Scott King was inside with a newborn. Medgar Evers was assasinated. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Malcom X was assassinated. Fred Hampton was assassinated. Desegregated buses carrying Black riders were SHOT at. Black children attending "integrated" schools were screamed at, spat on and shunned by White students and faculty. And poor, young Black men were disproportionately drafted to go kill and be killed in Vietnam in the name of a country that took one hundred years after Emancipation to finally grant them meaningful access to a voting booth.
I could go on and on about the horrific White violence aimed at Black people and Black courage and Black justice and Black leadership just during the first decade and a half of my now relatively long life - and how it still carries on, both as institutional White supremacy and racist violence, and as scores and scores of unpunished extra-judicial murders of non-White people by White people, throughout every subsequent decade my life.
No, I have ZERO sympathy for cowardly White people, White men, and White women, too.
And these cowardly White people in Congress? Again, mostly White men, with money, privilege and actual power, hiding behind the fig leaf of "concern for their families' safety" now that violent White Supremacy threatens them, too?
And all to try to justify their knowing participation, their pathetic, cowardly collusion, in the corrupt autocratic kleptcracy of our country under the dementing, decompensating and depraved "leadership" of Donald J. Trump?
I’ve been most concerned about the violent White Right for as long as I can remember. It’s what happens when your parents are educated but poor. Ours was always the only house with a significant number of books in the neighborhoods in which we lived…Massachusetts *and* Florida. The bullies seemed worse in Florida, but recent family trips to rural Massachusetts have sparked doubts in my recollections. We weren’t officially segregated up North but we didn’t need to be. The separate water fountains and bathrooms (and beaches) in Florida were jarring to me, but when all that disappeared the differences between North and South did, too. My dad always worried about reasonable people being outbred by Yahoos and Morlocks (not his terms—mine from Swift and Wells). I’m not sure that’s what happened, but the America of today bears certainly a strong resemblance to what one could expect. Dad is gone now, and I won’t be around a whole lot longer. I’m not sorry.
I am also a child of the sixties. Please remember that you don't want to become what you are against. I doubt that the families of Republican politicians have much agency in what they are able to do.
Yes! Exactly! The "cult" is his base, the poor MAGA faithful who will follow him regardless of what he does (shoots someone on fifth Ave) or what he says.!
The spineless republicans in Congress know that his base are the ones who vote in the primaries (nobody else does).! So they know they have to go along with him in order to win their primaries. That's what it really boils down to. If you don't kiss his ring, you don't get reelected.
Like the law firms, universities, media companies- those Senators and the GOP have failed the Constitution they all have PROFESSIONAL responsibility to protect, because they failed to unite against him in public action. They preferred to be picked off, one by one, and it continues.
I think most people surmised republican politicians were just cynical assholes who would do whatever trump wanted, even if it meant destroying the country. They thought they’d just ride his popularity wave.
The fear is still there hanging heavily over their heads. Politics is a tough game and not for the weak hearted or that’s the way it supposed to be. I’m sure every Republican has deep concerns about their families safety.
I don’t blame them for feelings of cowardice and mandated compliance.
My recommendation is if you are that afraid, and fear to do what’s right,get the heck out of the game!
No courage. Just go along and bitch silently. In a workplace you could challenge the system or you could quit. But not easy so dig in and try to ignore it.
I was recalling today the time in the first Trump term when he was called out on something and his Press Secretary admitted the facts were incorrect and that the President had "misspoken".
Here's the thing. If they all decided in unison, to resist. What would have happened to them? Nothing. Can't vote them all out. Can't carry threats against all of them. Even their constituents, would have been upset at first, then forgotten about. Life goes on. And we would be in a better place. They would still have their jobs, and we would never have known this life we are living now.
Therein lies the argument that it is greed, not fear, motivating their unAmerican complicity with the billionaire bribe machine that the Roberts Supremacist Court re-defined and legalized as “gratuities in advance.”
This profound summary will be part of the many historical stories we can expect to be written in the decades ahead. How many books about, say Lincoln, have been and will continue to be written still? But, Trump’s stories may be more eulogy for America, more expressing regret than any for the leaders of the past, up to and including Biden. The books that will be written to document the final years of our country if not our civilization.
That morbid thought cannot be dismissed so easily so long as he continues his slide into insanity and dementia. Really, Republicans in Congress can be blamed for this threat because they were given and still have the power to stop him. Don’t doubt how quickly our country can end especially if you have witnessed the death of an ill relative or friend. Trump is like a pillow on the face of America.
Mitt, thanks for confirming what many of of us have long suspected: repuppetans are cucks and cowards.
And btw thx for the laugh. FYI, when I submit my private letters, let it be known we grimly laugh at repugnicans these days. We think Ronny raygun, the McCarthy disciple and Hollywood red scare snitch, is the epitome of repukenicanism and it didn't get better. But Benito Cheeto? The absolute worst.
True dat. But even Nixon resigned. Partly because Congress (even repubs) and the court of public opinion did their jobs and partly because Nixon understood it was in the country's (and his own) best interest.
While part of me sees the missed opportunity to send a clear message that no one, not even the president, is above the law, I also believe Ford made his decision based on what he believed was best for the nation.
This time feels very different. He's been impeached twice, yet each day, finds a new way to demonstrate his insatiatieble criminal greed and cruelty, narcissism, and mental decline.
I couldn’t find a photo of my sign, but I carried one that said, “Impeach Trump—Third time’s a charm”. The other side said “Impeach the Liar-in-Chief”.
In a comment to another post, I remarked that I watched a PBS show last night about the first moon landing. Nixon was putting himself in the picture quite a lot as it appeared that the attempt was succeeding. I had had a Nixon Countdown Calendar from Rolling Stone which I threw away when he resigned, and now he just seemed like another President doing his President Thing. My dad had been a P.O.W. in Germany, and in this show Werner (“I Aim for the Stars…but Sometimes I Hit London”) Von Braun was all over the place, and rightly so. Von Braun and Willy Ley loomed very large in the art and magazine stories about the future of space travel I gobbled down in the early Fifties
This is very close to the descriptions given by Germans who lived through the rise of Hitler. "It went drop by drop...sort of like an anesthetic," is a common refrain. Americans, however, are not as "good" at following rules or respecting authority as traditional Germans were--and that might be our salvation.
Daniel Goldhagen put it best in his stunning book "Hitler's Willing Executioners."
They follow their Fuhrer because they could personally lose financially if they didn’t ! Hitler would simply of had them shot … these bastards are as evil as trump ! Their allegiance is about cash nothing more !
Might.
It's greed. Greed for power. Greed for wealth. Greed for the sake of greed.
True dat. We’ve let those grifting bastards get away w/ literal murder.
They follow their Fuhrer because they could personally lose financially if they didn’t ! Hitler would simply of had them shot … these bastards are as evil as trump ! Their allegiance is up cash nothing more !
What a frightening assessment of those selected and elected senators!
I understand fear for self and family...I will NEVER understand the insanely blind-to-factual evidence the followers of this hollow man possess and proudly display.
I am left pondering and wondering what it will take to convince them.
They have gone too far down the rabbit hole to return to normalcy.
The movie, “A Man for All Seasons,” teaches That the price for granite integrity, for saving your soul, may be sacrificing your life.
These 'deplorables' cannot even sacrifice their congressional aspirations!
I remember seeing that movie as a young person, maybe age 10. I need to watch it over again as an aging adult!
They will have to lose reelection in order to "wake up" and see the truth.
I fear nothing else will do it.
Reelection should be the least f their worries. What about the destruction of the country their children will inherit ?
Because I was a child during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, I have zero sympathy for the Republicans concerned for their families' "safety".
Black churches were BOMBED. Martin Luther King's house was BOMBED while Coretta Scott King was inside with a newborn. Medgar Evers was assasinated. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Malcom X was assassinated. Fred Hampton was assassinated. Desegregated buses carrying Black riders were SHOT at. Black children attending "integrated" schools were screamed at, spat on and shunned by White students and faculty. And poor, young Black men were disproportionately drafted to go kill and be killed in Vietnam in the name of a country that took one hundred years after Emancipation to finally grant them meaningful access to a voting booth.
I could go on and on about the horrific White violence aimed at Black people and Black courage and Black justice and Black leadership just during the first decade and a half of my now relatively long life - and how it still carries on, both as institutional White supremacy and racist violence, and as scores and scores of unpunished extra-judicial murders of non-White people by White people, throughout every subsequent decade my life.
No, I have ZERO sympathy for cowardly White people, White men, and White women, too.
And these cowardly White people in Congress? Again, mostly White men, with money, privilege and actual power, hiding behind the fig leaf of "concern for their families' safety" now that violent White Supremacy threatens them, too?
And all to try to justify their knowing participation, their pathetic, cowardly collusion, in the corrupt autocratic kleptcracy of our country under the dementing, decompensating and depraved "leadership" of Donald J. Trump?
Useless worms, the lot of them.
I completely agree with this assessment of white cowardice. The IRONY being it's people of their own color they fear.
I’ve been most concerned about the violent White Right for as long as I can remember. It’s what happens when your parents are educated but poor. Ours was always the only house with a significant number of books in the neighborhoods in which we lived…Massachusetts *and* Florida. The bullies seemed worse in Florida, but recent family trips to rural Massachusetts have sparked doubts in my recollections. We weren’t officially segregated up North but we didn’t need to be. The separate water fountains and bathrooms (and beaches) in Florida were jarring to me, but when all that disappeared the differences between North and South did, too. My dad always worried about reasonable people being outbred by Yahoos and Morlocks (not his terms—mine from Swift and Wells). I’m not sure that’s what happened, but the America of today bears certainly a strong resemblance to what one could expect. Dad is gone now, and I won’t be around a whole lot longer. I’m not sorry.
Imaginary theoretical dangers scarier than what is really happening. Chickenshit.
I am also a child of the sixties. Please remember that you don't want to become what you are against. I doubt that the families of Republican politicians have much agency in what they are able to do.
I'm sure they have not confided to their families that they are spineless cowards.
Powerful words and so true.
You are correct totally! A bunch of spineless greedy cowards!
Not an ounce of integrity among them!
The elected who allow this are cowards; those who voted for him are the cultists.
Agreed
Yes! Exactly! The "cult" is his base, the poor MAGA faithful who will follow him regardless of what he does (shoots someone on fifth Ave) or what he says.!
The spineless republicans in Congress know that his base are the ones who vote in the primaries (nobody else does).! So they know they have to go along with him in order to win their primaries. That's what it really boils down to. If you don't kiss his ring, you don't get reelected.
Cowardice. They should have laughed in his face 10 years ago.
Like the law firms, universities, media companies- those Senators and the GOP have failed the Constitution they all have PROFESSIONAL responsibility to protect, because they failed to unite against him in public action. They preferred to be picked off, one by one, and it continues.
I think most people surmised republican politicians were just cynical assholes who would do whatever trump wanted, even if it meant destroying the country. They thought they’d just ride his popularity wave.
MAGA voters always were and are the cult members.
Exactly
I am ashamed that we have voted for these craven cowards.
I have never voted for them. I am honorable and the Republican party is not.
I view the Dems as the lesser of two evils. We need to get off our collective butts and clean house in DC.
I never voted for ANY of them!
I bear NO responsibility for any of this!
I tried to warn people!
I told them he was following Hitler's playbook!
The fear is still there hanging heavily over their heads. Politics is a tough game and not for the weak hearted or that’s the way it supposed to be. I’m sure every Republican has deep concerns about their families safety.
I don’t blame them for feelings of cowardice and mandated compliance.
My recommendation is if you are that afraid, and fear to do what’s right,get the heck out of the game!
No courage. Just go along and bitch silently. In a workplace you could challenge the system or you could quit. But not easy so dig in and try to ignore it.
And yet trumps primary champions lose again. Do your worst, asshole in chief. Call us commies or even worse, DEI
Exactly! Do the right thing and resign!
I was recalling today the time in the first Trump term when he was called out on something and his Press Secretary admitted the facts were incorrect and that the President had "misspoken".
What a lifetime ago that now seems.
Here's the thing. If they all decided in unison, to resist. What would have happened to them? Nothing. Can't vote them all out. Can't carry threats against all of them. Even their constituents, would have been upset at first, then forgotten about. Life goes on. And we would be in a better place. They would still have their jobs, and we would never have known this life we are living now.
People believe that politicians are smart. They often are not at all. Clever in a sleazy way is more apt. It wouldn't occur to them to stick together.
Therein lies the argument that it is greed, not fear, motivating their unAmerican complicity with the billionaire bribe machine that the Roberts Supremacist Court re-defined and legalized as “gratuities in advance.”
The magats are even worse cowards snd would whine snd bitch and do what? Their power was always imaginary. Omg don’t upset the people of the diners
This profound summary will be part of the many historical stories we can expect to be written in the decades ahead. How many books about, say Lincoln, have been and will continue to be written still? But, Trump’s stories may be more eulogy for America, more expressing regret than any for the leaders of the past, up to and including Biden. The books that will be written to document the final years of our country if not our civilization.
That morbid thought cannot be dismissed so easily so long as he continues his slide into insanity and dementia. Really, Republicans in Congress can be blamed for this threat because they were given and still have the power to stop him. Don’t doubt how quickly our country can end especially if you have witnessed the death of an ill relative or friend. Trump is like a pillow on the face of America.
That's a good description..... he's a pillow on the face of America!
Wow.
Sold their souls
$$$$$$$$$
Yes! Exactly!
Mitt, thanks for confirming what many of of us have long suspected: repuppetans are cucks and cowards.
And btw thx for the laugh. FYI, when I submit my private letters, let it be known we grimly laugh at repugnicans these days. We think Ronny raygun, the McCarthy disciple and Hollywood red scare snitch, is the epitome of repukenicanism and it didn't get better. But Benito Cheeto? The absolute worst.
You forgot to mention “Tricky Dick” Nixon.
True dat. But even Nixon resigned. Partly because Congress (even repubs) and the court of public opinion did their jobs and partly because Nixon understood it was in the country's (and his own) best interest.
While part of me sees the missed opportunity to send a clear message that no one, not even the president, is above the law, I also believe Ford made his decision based on what he believed was best for the nation.
This time feels very different. He's been impeached twice, yet each day, finds a new way to demonstrate his insatiatieble criminal greed and cruelty, narcissism, and mental decline.
Perhaps the third time's the charm.
I couldn’t find a photo of my sign, but I carried one that said, “Impeach Trump—Third time’s a charm”. The other side said “Impeach the Liar-in-Chief”.
In a comment to another post, I remarked that I watched a PBS show last night about the first moon landing. Nixon was putting himself in the picture quite a lot as it appeared that the attempt was succeeding. I had had a Nixon Countdown Calendar from Rolling Stone which I threw away when he resigned, and now he just seemed like another President doing his President Thing. My dad had been a P.O.W. in Germany, and in this show Werner (“I Aim for the Stars…but Sometimes I Hit London”) Von Braun was all over the place, and rightly so. Von Braun and Willy Ley loomed very large in the art and magazine stories about the future of space travel I gobbled down in the early Fifties
But Nixon had the decency to resign!
And the republicans of that day had the decency to insist that he do so!
Today it seems that the party is much more corrupt.
Infinitely so.
Yeah, but when will someone be brave enough to ask him, AS HE ENTERS, “what the heck are you doing?”
The second time I’ve seen “heck” in a comment today. WTF?
They’re takin over, I tell you! 😎
I should have said “WTH”.
This shows how completely those assholes have sold their souls.