“Extraordinarily weak”. That’s the term used last week by a Proud Boys leader to characterize Donald Trump after he (a) disrespected his rallygoers by failing to walk to the Capitol and participate in the mayhem with them, (b) disoriented them them a few hours later with video of himself stating, ”We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. … We don't want anybody hurt”, and (c) disowned owned them (through his blonde mouthpiece K. McEnany), who stated, “We condemn it — the president and this administration — in the strongest possible terms. It is unacceptable, and those that broke the law should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.
Apparently a major muscle faction of the MAGA constituency now wishes they could have chosen a different Mob Boss to run their insurrection. Or perhaps they are simply angry they didn’t perform a better job of vetting Trump to find out if his soul was corrupt enough to understand that kidnapping and murder were essential tools of any mutinous revolt and were not to be taken off the table under any circumstance.
Either way, Trump’s incompetence is now obvious to a small but significant faction of America’s right flank (even if they still support his other criminal skills). Because of this weakness, his ability to continue to hold sway over the remainder of his coalition is in jeopardy.
So who will step up to be Michael Corleone in the next embodiment of America’s red-hatted underbelly? We’ve seen legislators Hawley, Cruz and others jockeying for position to become heir-apparent to Trump — but are any of them trustworthy enough to garner a thumbs-up from Proud Boys? Have they performed any ritual crimes of initiation to demonstrate their worthiness of gang membership? Have they demonstrated Vito Corleone’s fortitude to concoct and flawlessly execute a plan for violent retribution when opposing crime families dared to step out of line (...by killing his son and trying to take over his turf)?
I daresay Cruz, Hawley and others won’t be able to rely on any undergraduate breadth requirements from Princeton or Stanford, or any special electives taken at Harvard Law School to explicitly demonstrate their gang-worthiness. Perhaps they have spent the last four years studying The Don(ald) and have begun to internalize and adopt his corrupt techniques. These dictators-in-waiting certainly seem to be willing to practice their art of the big lie, whenever given the chance.
Now is the time for our criminal justice heroes (i.e., those who hold down day jobs as journalists) to keep very close watches on all the pretenders to Trump’s throne (...including Gosar, Brooks and Boebert as well as Hawley and Cruz) and to expose every hint of conspiracy they fail to conceal and every undemocratic utterance they make.
Press members — we thank you for your service to America! You are the warriors who venture to foxholes and set up camp near the front lines to help America win its guerilla war against the forces of authoritarianism and fascism.