Conservatives and evangelical Christians, like myself, have for too long rationalized that ignoring the president's language and behavior was tolerable because of his policies. There comes a time, however (even at this late hour), when one must ask one's self if this was a Faustian bargain that overwhelmed legitimate policy disagreements.
...
The excuses, the comparisons with what the left does and the "whataboutisms" won't cut it this time. This is not conservatism. This is not Republicanism. The Republican Party was founded largely as an anti-slavery party. Too many among today's members and among conservatives (not always the same thing) have become enslaved to the person and personality of Donald Trump. This is not hero worship. It is idolatry.
Other sources.
He shouldn't worry about it. The Trumpists apologistas are out in full force, doing their utmost to justify Wednesday's attempted coup by Trumpist insurrectionists. They'll never blame him for supporting Trump.
On the other hand, there are people like me. Mr. Thomas, who well knew the nature and quality of the man that you have been supporting for years. Those of us who were familiar with Trump's business practices and his politics tried our best to warn you about the man to whom you hitched your wagon.
But did you listen? No.
We pointed out Trump's racism and his bent towards authoritarianism. We pointed out his irrlegiousity and his misogyny. We pointed out that Trump has never met a lie that he cannot tell, a promise that he can't break, a deal that he can't weasel out of or welsh on.
But did you listen? No. Cal, you believed that you could overlook that, all of it, so long as you got something out of the deal. As Trump shattered one democratic norm after another, you closed your eyes and stoppered up your ears.
Cal, it apparently didn't even bother you when Trump proclaimed his lack of belief in fair elections in 2016 and when he acted on his belief in 2020. He spun a whopper of a series of lies about voter fraud and Venezualean voting machine tampering. You let Trump continue with his lies, without objection, and you let him poison the minds of tens of millions of Americans because you got what you wanted.
In other words, Cal, Trump paid you off. He bribed you to look the other way as he enriched himself and his family through acts of corruption that, if a Democrat had done one-one thousandth of thise things, you would have been out in the streets with pitchforks and torches.
But now, only now, that Trump tried to stage a coup and failed, you are expressing regrets for having sat down and supped with this particular devil for four years.
Right. You were never Trumpers, just like there were tens of millions of Germans who weren't really Nazis. They went along to get along, just as you did. Only, unlike a lot of those Germans, there was no Gestapo to enforce obedience. You followed Trump down into this dark, dank hole of your own free will.
What happened on January 6th, 2021 happened because people like you, Cal Thomas, were happy to watch Trump attempt to destroy democracy, as long as they saw a profit in it. You felt free to do that because you thought there really wasn't any danger that Trump would succeed at making himself into a dictator.
Well, you were almost very wrong. Trump sent his mob to the Capitol to stop the certification of the election and seize power for himself. Trump was abetted by local law enforcement and federal law enforcement which, despite plenty of warning, took no advance action to prevent the coup. Trump was aided and abetted by all of the Republican politicians who were too cowardly to oppose him. Only when faced with an actual lynch mob did some of the Republicans in Congress grow a spine.
So, Cal Thomas, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, the Right-Wing Media, Trump's acolytes and all of the evangelicals who sacrified their morals and their ideals and their souls for some judges and tax breaks : This is on you. When push came to shove, you put your own petty interests ahead of the nation. You gave your loyalty to Trump, not to the Constitution, not to the American Experiment.
And I, for one, will do what I can to ensure that you are never allowed to forget it.
If "The Republican Party was founded largely as an anti-slavery party", it was a momentary weakness, a crisis of moral conscience that they soon overcame, and reverted to their true conservative form under that ancient ideology founded on the idea that there is a natural order which should be preserved, as a power/protection tradeoff, in which deference/allegiance is owed to those (individuals/families/classes) strong enough (in whatever dimension) to obtain/hold power and to some degree provide value in that role to those under their power. In its truest form, nothing else is implied/required (e.g. freedom) beyond that basic power relationship and its natural right to be the organizing principle of human society. Little surprise that the Republicans have gravitated toward that truer center of their ideology since they formed the party.
ReplyDeleteThomas relating/equating slavery as it existed in the 1800s to being "enslaved to the person and personality of Donald Trump" must be very offensive to the descendants and history of American slaves. Then to give the Trumpists the out of being simply idolatrous of Trump the person/personality is letting them off much too easily. They idolize so many bigger demons that underlie Trumpism and Republicanism/conservatism more broadly - greed, power, jealousy, inequity, absolution from moral dishonesty, ...
O, Cromwell, Cromwell! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my King, he would not have in my age Have left me naked to mine enemies. Farewell, the hope of Court! My hopes in Heaven to dwell!
ReplyDeleteCardinal Wolsey
I agree. Burn the lifeboats. Also, how would many of these very lately appalled Republicans be reacting if the coup had succeeded instead?
ReplyDelete-Doug in Sugar Pine
Cal has been a sanctimonious self-righteous so-much-better-than-you prig forever.
ReplyDeleteHe must have to be brought in mummified with a hand truck like Strom Thurmond, with his handlers taking care that sunlight doesn't turn him into dust and a strong wind blow him away, like some outtake from an Indiana Jones movie, maybe Indiana Jones and Crypt of the Conservative Ancients.
Or perhaps he's an vampire, interred with an Internet connection whence he files his opinions piece. More sunlight! Must have had a miserable childhood in the 1800s....
Well said.
ReplyDeleteExcellent question, Doug in Sugar Pine. And thankfully we won’t know.
ReplyDelete