—
Well, actually a boatload of two-faced cowards, makes.
Political ambition can do strange things to people … Make them take bold stands:
“All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough,” [Graham said.]
[...]
In a statement, McConnell called Jan. 6 “a dark day for Congress and our country” after “the seat of the first branch of our federal government was stormed by criminals who brutalized police officers and used force to try to stop Congress from doing its job.”
[...]
“There can be no soft-pedaling what happened and no absolution for those who planned, encouraged and aided the attempt to overthrow our democracy. Love of country demands nothing less. That’s true patriotism,” [Karl Rove] wrote.
www.pbs.org — Jan 7, 2022
Make them stand on their principles, in the aftermath of unimaginable abuses of power:
“There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” McConnell said. “The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.”
www.politico.com — 02/13/2021
Make them speak the truth, when their outrage is boiling:
“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” McCarthy said on the House floor. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.”
[...]
“Some say the riots were caused by antifa. There is absolutely no evidence of that,” McCarthy said. “Conservatives should be the first to say so.”
[...]
McCarthy also made clear that Biden is the rightful next president, distancing himself from the continued effort by Trump and others to delegitimize the president-elect’s electoral victory, and he added that it is “not the American way.”
“Let’s be clear, Joe Biden will be sworn in as president of the United States in one week because he won the election,” he said.
www.politico.com — 01/13/2021
Yet political ambitions can tie up those same people, into rhetorical pretzels — when the insidious quest for power, over-rides any flashes of rationality and principles, that they just indignantly expressed. When “expediency” calls, the two-faced cowards go crawling ...
Last month, just over a week after Trump left office, McCarthy had lunch with the former president to discuss strategy.
The two snapped a photo together, and Trump promised to help McCarthy and the GOP take back the House in 2022.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle argued the meeting showed the party was loyal to one man, not a set of ideas.
www.forbes.com — 02/09/2021
This uniquely Kevin crawl-back, perhaps more than any one political act “do-ever” — has done more to re-empower the ex-president Pariah, than any other Hobbesian contract, hammered-out in recent times ...
[...]
What I underestimated was the impact that one person would have on that, and that is Kevin McCarthy and his visit to Mar-a-Lago,” Kinzinger said, referring to a trip McCarthy took to Florida in late January 2020 as the party was on the verge of disarray. With their eyes on retaking the House in 2022, Trump and McCarthy agreed to work together and released a photograph showing them smiling side by side.
“Kevin McCarthy is legitimately, singlehandedly the reason that Donald Trump is still a force in the party,” Kinzinger said. “That full-hearted embrace, I saw firsthand in members, made them not just scared to take on Trump but in some cases also full-heartedly embrace him.”
Aides to McCarthy didn’t respond to a request for comment on Kinzinger’s characterization.
www.pbs.org — Jan 6, 2022
McCarthy’s betrayal to his own words of Trump condemnation, just weeks earlier, was the first domino to fall in Trump’s “rehabilitation tour.” Kevin’s stamp of approval for Trump, signaled to other outraged republicans, and indeed to the Corporate Media itself — that it was A-OK to start accepting Trumpism again. Especially if it meant you would get something out of this corrupt sell out.
And most republican cowards acquiesced to McCarthy’s lead — and as Kinzinger put it: “made them not just scared to take on Trump but in some cases also full-heartedly embrace him.”
The Media was soon to follow suit. Let by-gones be by-gones. Trump’s statements soon became “newsworthy” again — worth covering again — whether those statements dealt in the domain of Facts, or not. There were Ad Dollars to chase, there were ‘both sides’ narratives to tell, and an inevitable horse-race to gin up — whether or not Trump was guilty of anything (wink wink, nod nod). Damn the ethical torpedoes — enforcing the Laws of the Nation was not their problem.
Telling tall tales breathlessly, was and is their bread and butter.
Life moves on, and so do the endless Trump Lies. Unchallenged, depending on the channel. And now 15 months out from the next election: “Everything is finally back to normal” … relatively speaking, considering all the breaking points that were tested last time around.
—
Despite that snap-back to “normalcy” thanks to Kevin McCarthy, some pols stood by their principles to the bitter end. They still, represent the best of our fragile system of governing. People who put accountability and the Constitution, far far ahead of personal ambition ...
What she's saying [Liz Cheney]: "My fellow Republicans wanted me to lie. They wanted me to say the 2020 election was stolen, the attack of Jan. 6th wasn't a big deal, and Donald Trump wasn't dangerous," said the former vice chair of the Jan. 6 panel that investigated the Capitol riot, [...]
- "I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership," continued Cheney, who was ousted as the No. 3 House Republican after she called out Trump's false election claims.
- "As I spoke to my colleagues on my last morning as chair of the Republican conference, I told them that if they wanted a leader who would lie, they should choose someone else," added the 1988 Colorado College graduate.
- "No party, no nation, no people can defend and perpetuate a constitutional republic if they accept leaders who have gone to war with the rule of law, with the democratic process, with the peaceful transfer of power, with the Constitution itself."
www.axios.com — May 28, 2023
Political ambition can do strange things to people … Make some people take bold stands …
Make others recant them easily … for the never-ending price of their Faustian bargain.
— —
In summary, it is the looming danger that Trump represents, and promises to wreak one day, that makes him newsworthy. But it is also confoundingly, that very same normalizing news coverage, that continues to fuel and empower that danger.
It’s a viscous feedback loop. And a helluva system we got here.
With a 4th estate that feigns neutrality, and a political party that has chosen to the “turn the page” (aka. “willingly lie”) — rather than “throw the book” at the repeat law-breaker.
They just can’t quit him. Their personal ambitions can’t allow such open disloyalty.
They call it … “Politics.” Don’t ask. Just get with the program.
— —