On February 27, while the pro-Trumpers were solidifying their hold on the Republican Party at CPAC 2021, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) posted the following on Twitter:
“I am a progressive Democrat. But I'm friends with Republicans. I frequent businesses owned by Republicans. I root for sports teams full of Republicans. I've devoted my life to politics, but I'm careful to not let my politics consume me.”
The reaction was swift and overwhelmingly negative:
This pushback, and many more similar responses, were well-deserved in my view. Yes, it’s possible to have friends who are Republicans. However, someone in Murphy’s position needs to be laser-focused on the direction a substantial part of the country is heading:
I understand it’s tempting to look at people you’ve known, who happen to be Republican, as “just people” and perhaps good people at that. (I know a few people who conform to this description.) But we, and particularly Senator Murphy, have to keep in mind that these “good people” elected members of a cult in 2020, a cult that has become explicitly white nationalist and a cult that is largely, if not exclusively, interested in maintaining its own power, and not in democracy.
This cult isn’t fleeting. It’s not going away. Indeed, it has the potential to become far worse. Trump largely got in his own way, but he’s taught the Republican Party how to lie with impunity and attract hordes of supporters. Supporters just like those “good people” Senator Murphy writes about in his tweet above.
We can’t afford to be sanguine about the Republican Party any more, or Republicans who support Republican candidates for office. To do so is only to allow the cult to finally take over.
Senator Murphy, I sincerely hope you rethink the position you espouse in your tweet. You may not want your politics to consume you, but the Republicans you write of have let their politics consume them. You need to prevent them from consuming the rest of us.
Update — Rec list, thanks very much. And thanks for the good discussion in the comments.