Republicans Yawn as Trump Threatens "Death and Destruction"

The Republican Party that I grew up in and was active inover two decades ago is dead and gone.  Also gone is any semblance the the GOP is the party of law and order or "family values" save for when they are targeting gays and minorities to allegedly protect children in order to thrill religious extremists and white supremacists even as they seek to unwind child labor laws and continue to bow and scrape to a man who is the embodiment of the seven deadly sins.  As for law and order, criminals who sacked the U.S. Capitol on live video seen by the nation are treated as "political prisoners" while law enforcement officials are cast as the enemy.  In short, the moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party is now complete - something underscored by Donald Trump's lates threats against prosecutors and signals to his demented and toxic base that "death and destruction" should ensue if he is indicted in one or more of the numerous investigations currently properly targeting him. The reaction to all of this from Republican elected officials: yawns and a shrugging of shoulders.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at Trump and the spineless, morallybankrupt party he continues to lead.  Here are highlights:

Donald Trump is back in his presidential—or at least modern-day-presidential—form, posting unhinged threats on social media in the middle of the night. Early today, he posted on his Truth Social site:

What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?  Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely hates the USA!

Nearly every phrase in this message is disturbing, but the most rattling part is his threat of “death & destruction.” This is classic Trumpian mob-boss talk: He doesn’t make a specific threat against anyone, and he doesn’t specifically incite any acts. . . . . yet the intent is unmistakably to intimidate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and anyone else who might try to charge him with crimes. It’s a threat against the American justice system as a whole.

By now, no one will seriously wonder whether this kind of threat is too much for other Republican leaders to bear. Everyone knows the answer is no. . . . . McCarthy also said, “He’s not talking in a harmful way, and nobody should.” GOP leaders have repeatedly found ways, however implausible, to look past Trump’s abuses.

If the intimidation is shocking, the more revealing part of the rant is what it indicates about Trump’s mindset amid the several criminal probes into him, some of which appear to be moving toward indictments. As he once said in a very different context, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” And although Trump was referring to groping women then, that was also his philosophy in life . . . Now Trump is finding that simply being a star is insufficient to get him out of trouble. In fact, his notoriety has attracted extra scrutiny.

[T]he problem remains that Joe Biden got more votes. His implication is that because he is popular (or somewhat popular!) he ought to be immune to law enforcement.

The former president doesn’t even really bother to mount a substantive defense to the expected allegation against him here, which is that he falsified business records in reimbursing his former fixer Michael Cohen for a hush payment made to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actor. . . . Instead, he’s upset that anyone would even bother to suggest that the rules apply to him.

Legal problems aside, a lively debate has occurred over whether getting indicted would actually be good for Trump, by rallying support to him. He’s seen recent improvement in primary polls against Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, and raised lots of money. But this Truth missive shows that Trump isn’t acting like it’s good for him. His anger suggests he views Bragg’s probe as a threat, and that leads him to the predictable and unacceptable position of making threats of violence. Trump has the right question: “Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely hates the USA!” Not a bad answer, either.