The Moral Desolation of the GOP

A column at The Atlantic by a former Republican contemplates the moral bankruptcy of today's Republican Party.  Donald Trump has rmade the Grand Old Party in his image and he was assisted every step of the way by rank and file members of the party leadership always motivated by a desire for power over all else and a fear of the hideous base of the party - white supremacists and Christofascists - who Trump beaconed to slither out from under the rocks where they had long layed largely out of sight. Along the way the self-described party of law and order, constitutional conservatives, of morality and traditional values, and patriotism became the anthesis of the values claimed to govern the party.  Each time when a choice of honor and decency presented itself, the party leaders chose perceived self-advantage and a lust for power at any cost first.  Trump may have been the opportunist who let loose the haters and bigots, but the rest of the party leadership gladly welcomed them and threw principle and decency to the wind.  At this point, the party appears beyond saving despite the efforts of a handful of Republicans to stand for the values that once defined the GOP.   Here are column excerpts:

[T]he leaders of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol opened their public hearings—hearings that will show, in the words of vice chair Liz Cheney, that “Donald Trump oversaw a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power.”

Or, as committee chair Bennie Thompson put it, “Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy.” The violent assault on the Capitol was the culmination of that effort; Trump “summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney said. And he reveled in what he had done. The more carnage, the better.

That Donald Trump acted the way he did was hardly a surprise; some of us had been warning about his borderless corruptions and disordered personality since before he became president. It’s hard to imagine that there’s any ethical line this broken, embittered, vindictive man wouldn’t cross . . . .

But the story of the Trump presidency isn’t only about the corruptions and delusions of one man; it’s also about the party he represents. Trump recast the Republican Party, of which I was long a proud member, in his image. His imprint on the GOP is, in important respects, even greater than Ronald Reagan’s, despite Reagan being a successful two-term president.

“Other presidents have been accused of wrongdoing, even high crimes and misdemeanors,” Peter Baker wrote in The New York Times, “but the case against Donald J. Trump mounted by the bipartisan House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol described not just a rogue president but a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang onto power at all costs.”

It was bad enough that many Republicans were complicit in Trump’s wrongdoings when he was president; that they continue to be complicit 17 months after Trump left the presidency is an even more damning indictment.

What Trump has done is worse even than what Nixon did and yet Republicans—despite the case against Trump being far more comprehensive and detailed than we knew in the immediate aftermath of January 6—continue to propagate his lies and either defend his seditious conduct or act as if it never happened. It’s “old news,” we’re told. Nothing to see here. Time to move on.

Not so fast.

The sheer scale of Donald Trump’s depravity is unmatched in the history of the American presidency, and the Republican Party—the self-described party of law and order and “constitutional conservatives,” of morality and traditional values, of patriotism and Lee Greenwood songs—made it possible. It gave Trump cover when he needed it. It attacked his critics when he demanded it. It embraced his nihilistic ethic. It amplified his lies.

Make no mistake: Republicans are the co-creators of Trump’s corrupt and unconstitutional enterprise. The great majority of them are still afraid to break fully with him. They consider those who have, like Liz Cheney, to be traitors to the party. They hate Cheney because she continues to hold up a mirror to them. They want to look away. She won’t let them.

Perhaps the most withering sentences of Cheney’s extraordinary presentation last night were these: “Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

Those in the Republican Party and on the American right who defended Trump and continue to do so—who went silent in the face of his transgressions, who rationalized their weakness, who went along for the ride for the sake of power—must know, deep in their hearts, that what she said is true. And it will always be true.

Their dishonor is indelible.