It’s been a year since Donald Trump won the highest office in the land by an outdated method of electoral mathematics. There are those of us who still can’t believe it happened and those of us who are still in shock that the very institution designed to protect the country from such travesty, the Electoral College, failed us so miserably by electing this orange buffoon into office. And yet, here we are. A year into the train wreck of the Trump presidency and there are no major legislative achievements, the White House is embroiled in controversy and scandal, and the country is closer than ever to the threat of nuclear war.
But I want to take a moment to remember an earlier time, back before the election when we were still in the primary season. Do you recall the #NeverTrump movement in the Republican Party? Or any of the other outspoken, vocal critics of Trump? Before they all fell in line and endorsed him, all of his primary opponents were wholeheartedly against him and his lack of decorum, relevant experience, and basic human decency. What happened to them all? Where did they go? Why have they all fallen silent now that he’s the President? He certainly hasn’t become any more respectable or qualified for the office, yet their criticisms have all been washed away.
So what happened to these principled nay-sayers? Why has it taken retirement and/or brain cancer for anyone in office on the right to speak out publicly against the recklessness of a President so clearly unqualified for office? I don’t have any answers, I’m just asking the questions because they demand answers.
Everyone from Marco Rubio to Ted Cruz has fallen silent since the primary season ended, and these were some of Trump’s biggest and loudest detractors. Yet they continue to serve and even support the President’s initiatives now. How’s that for principled beliefs? Where are their guiding morals that they once so proudly said wouldn’t allow them to endorse the then candidate for President? The simple answer is that they have none.
Every time you hear, see, or read someone on the right making an appeal to the idea that the GOP is the party with some higher “moral authority” or the party of “morals”, etc, remember this simple example. The Republicans have no morals, no ethics, no principles. All they care about is power.
They’re terrified to speak out against Trump and his cabal of shadowy Breitbart-strategists and advisors because they don’t want to rock the boat, don’t want to upset the Trump base, and especially don’t want to get primaried in 2018. They’re puppets now, nothing more than puppets, in his Playskool Government. Sure, they may be horrified behind closed doors as they watch our democratic institutions burn to the ground and the foundations of our government being corrupted by private interests, but they’re staying behind those closed doors… watching; doing nothing to stop it. If they were patriots, if they were more concerned with the legacy and longevity of our country instead of their own careers, if they were principled public servants, they’d be up in arms, fighting against the madness of this fool in the White House and not hiding in the Cloakroom of the Capitol Building.
It’s shameful.
We should be holding the Republican party accountable for this travesty just as much as we hold Trump himself accountable for everything he’s done, doing, will do, and hasn’t done that he should have. The Republicans are responsible for elevating, nominating, and electing this man; for excusing his repugnant behaviour both before and after the campaign; and for his daily embarrassment on the world stage. Their silence is a tacit endorsement of his behaviour, which makes them every bit as guilty as if they were doing it all themselves, and we must never, ever forget that.
