Who wants to dwell on the past? Well, maybe some people can only cope with their present circumstances by living and reliving history, but not me. I’m not one to reread novels or stories, I’ve never gone to see a movie twice for that matter. Bob is even better at focusing on today, or better yet tomorrow! But this election cycle has me thinking – how did so many millions of people buy a Big Lie of election fraud, and how could over a hundred legislators return to the Capitol, after it had been breached, and still want to disrupt the certified votes for Biden and Harris on January 6th? I had to know!!!
Speaking of which, 45 Republican senators this morning would rather just move on, and forget that riotous insurrection of just a few weeks ago. They have said that impeaching Mr T now would be unconstitutional!
I found this essay in the Sunday NYTimes Magazine, “The American Abyss” by Timothy Snyder, to be enlightening:
“Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html?searchResultPosition=1
And wallow we did. Snyder weaves many aspects of fascism from the past into our current culture. Mr T started his political career lying about President Obama’s birth, although he was certainly a liar before that. Birtherism set the stage for bigger and better lies. He called the facts reported by independent media “fake news.” He capitalized on his charming, mob boss charisma. And according to Snyder, he seems to have fractured the Republican Party into two factions – the Gamers and the Breakers.
The Gamers are Republican politicians who would like to hold onto their power. Guys like Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul jump to mind. They use the lies, even though they may not believe them, as a method to advance their agenda of appointing conservative judges and giving out tax breaks to their buddies. Think about Josh Hawley’s raised fist. Think about the very sinister Ted Cruz.
Cruz brought up the “Compromise of 1877” as a precedent for the January 6th insurrection. Summoning that episode in American history was a calculated move. Compromise? What was the compromise? Well, Rutherford B Hayes was allowed to ascend to the presidency only if he pulled federal troops out of the south. Get it? Racism was the compromise; Jim Crow laws were enacted and legal segregation began anew, just as Reconstruction ended. This was America’s second original sin against previously enslaved African Americans.
To this day, Republicans work hard at voting restrictions and gerrymandering districts, largely aimed at Black, mostly Democratic voters.
“Republican legislators across the country are preparing a slew of new voting restrictions in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s defeat. Georgia will be the focal point of the GOP push to change state election laws, after Democrats narrowly took both Senate seats there and President Joe Biden carried the state by an even smaller margin. But state Republicans in deep-red states and battlegrounds alike are citing Trump’s meritless claims of voter fraud in 2020 — and the declining trust in election integrity Trump helped drive — as an excuse to tighten access to the polls.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/24/republicans-voter-id-laws-461707
The Breakers are the MAGA hatted disrupters who honestly believe all or most of the lies because once it’s said loud enough and often enough by Mr T it must be true?! They want a small government, with little in the way of rules and no regulations. Once called the Tea Party, the group that single-handedly stopped any path to legal immigration, their revolution has morphed into a crazy quilt of conspiracy theorists, malignant militias, white supremacists calling for a wall to be built and ultimately for VP Pence’s life – the mob at the Capitol wanted to hang Mike Pence – simply because he didn’t follow Mr T’s orders.
Certainly not all conservatives fit into these two constructs. Maybe most actual conservatives don’t; but stop the vote Trumpers do. I wonder if the GOP will actually split in two – a more extreme right, and a more moderate group. We barely avoided becoming a fascist state, for now…. President Biden has said he is intent on bringing Truth and Transparency back to government. But can we as a nation heal without accountability?
MountainMornings 
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