You will often hear Republicans (usually after losing an election ) describe America as “a republic, not a democracy.” It’s their way of telling Democrats: “Not so fast. Just because you won by more than seven million votes doesn’t mean you can just march in here and overturn whatever Republicans have done."
It’s a fallacy based on the outdated association of “democracy” with “mob rule.”
Gary Abernathy is one of several ex-Republican operatives the Washington Post hosts on its op-ed page who forsake rational conservative analysis in favor of eye-ball generating Trump cheer-leading. Hugh Hewitt and Marc Thiessen, I’m looking at you.
Abernathy’s takeaway from Chaney’s loss in Tuesday’s primary election, was that her “spectacular rejection” by Wyoming Republicans was caused by her insistence to “tell it like it is” and call a mob a mob.
Cheney should have known better. She should have remembered that, for many Republicans and for too many years, “telling it like it is” often bore no recognizable resemblance to reality. At least not the reality where the rest of us live.
And that is the point. “Like it is” can be found nowhere on the planet that is accessible to us through our five senses. Instead, “like it is" is a place that resides in the head. It is not a report of current conditions. It’s an idea of a reality. It’s a desire for a new reality once possibility and hope for dreams to come true have been entered into the equation.
But, as with everything else stored in the head, the place called “like it is” is subject to change. Sometimes radical change. Sometimes life-ending change. And sometimes change caused by forces, both seen and unseen, which could have serious, negative consequences inside one's head under the right conditions.
In sum, when people say they support those who “tell it like it is,” what they really mean is that they want want someone who will tell it like they want it to be.
America is a republic, not a democracy. But when former vice president Dick Cheney taped a campaign ad warning other Republicans about the existential threat Donald Trump poses to both the GOP and the American experiment, Abernathy was quick to defend the mob’s authoritarian tactics.
Cheney’s spot-on criticisms of Trump were dismissed as the sore-loser ravings of someone who’s not happy the GOP isn’t theirs anymore.
“The jilted lovers of the GOP operate under the delusion that Republicans have just temporarily lost their way, once they realize their folly, will find their way home. But, says Abernathy, "today’s GOP has no interest in being rescued by the very people it ditched.”
Ronald Reagan is still revered by longtime Republicans. But the GOP as it exists today is no more Reagan’s party than it was Dwight D. Eisenhower when Reagan ascended, said Abernathy.
“Instead of constantly reproaching Republicans for their choices, everyone should stipulate the following: The Republican Party has some lingering conservative leanings, but it is now the populist, Make America Great Again party of its modern leader, Donald Trump,” said Abernathy.
So, no one has any right criticizing or challenging it. If Republicans won't change because of it, then what's the point of this obsessive persistence with pointing out Republican flaws if its not the bloodlust to be mean, rude or insulting?
That's the Trump Republicans' arrogance and sense of entitlement speaking. They think everything is about them. They've appointed themselves the final arbiters of what is true, what is false and what can be said or written about them.
If they don't agree with it or change because of it, then criticism must be wrong. In short, right wing conservatives are doing the exact same thing to liberals that when done to them by liberals is elitist, arrogant and slander. And conservatives get to decide which is which..
The thought never occurs to them that we might not be talking to them at all, since many of them are non-reachable. Our aim might not be Republicans at all. We might be trying to convince the uncommitted not to repeat the tragic mistakes of Trump Republicans by joining them.
If the GOP is a party governed by mob rule, then the rest of us need to show the mob a little more respect. Even without Trump, “the GOP will not revert to the party of the past,” Abernathy said.
Abernathy insists that “our national acrimony” could be toned down if Republican critics “declare a halt to portraying the GOP as a terrorist- or conspiracy-based organization represented by the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers or other such groups.”
Abernathy somehow neglects to consider that “our national acrimony” might also be toned down further if Republicans would stop calling Democrats “far left, un-American radical socialists who are sustained by illegal aliens and funded by George Soros.” Like that will ever happen.
It never fails to amaze that whenever a group as fundamentally anti-social as the Republican Party under Trump has become, is outraged they are not extended the customary courtesies of respect and acceptance that liberals claim is what sets them apart from conservatives.
What do you say to slavish camp followers of the name-calling and insulting Trump, who complain about how badly Trump has been treated by name-calling Democrats?
I’m sure Liz Cheney and those who think like her would be glad to mute their urgent warnings about the Trump and the GOP. They might cease and desist, provided those who incite mobs stop being a terrorist and conspiracy-based party of white nationalist militiamen.
The more you call millions of hard-working, patriotic Americans racists, cultists or terrorists, says Abernathy, the more you push them away. I am sure Abernathy is right. Except for the fact no one is telling millions of hard-working, patriotic Americans that they are racists, cultists or terrorists. That's reserved for the racists, cultists and terrorist who control the GOP and internalize its unwholesome characteristics.
This reminds me of Hillary Clinton's remark about "a basket of deplorables". We all knew who she was talking about, but Trump remastered the target audience the next day when he called up on stage a sampling of "hard-working, patriotic Americans" and said these were the people Clinton added to the basket containing deplorables.
You can tell Abernathy and others are desperate and deplorable.
They're covering something up. That is why whenever they talk, a decided lack of enthusiasm and conviction is present.
For instance, Abernathy lectures us that we need to treat Republicans with more respect for their opinions. Yet, in the next breath, Abernathy claims that if Republicans were honest with pollsters “most Republicans likely know the 2020 election wasn’t fraudulent.”
What?! Either those in the Trump Republican base are liars, or Abernathy is presumptuous and condescending for thinking he knows what's really in the hearts and minds of Republicans.
But if he is right about Republican acceptance of the fact Donald Trump lost, then how do you explain the election laws that are being rewritten, the ideas for rigging elections being explored, and the Trump-backed candidates winning Republican primaries based on their boast Trump won the presidency?
How do you explain it? You can't. It is impossible to square the Republican Party's actions with Abernathy's assertion that “most Republicans likely know the 2020 election wasn’t fraudulent.”
Abernathy wants us to believe that in their heart of hearts Republicans aren't crazy or craven. They know the idea of a stolen election is a “Big Lie,” just as liberals said it was.
Other Republicans, says Abernathy, “even agree that Trump is many of the unsavory things that his critics claim.”
So, I guess saying out loud what everyone knows to be true, but still deny, does not count as "telling it like it is."
That reminds me of when Mitch McConnell said Trump was guilty of both articles of impeachment – moments after McConnell voted to acquit Trump on all charges.
Is it unfair to call that behavior immoral and without honor? What about that constitutional oath McConnell and other senators had to take before the impeachment trials began pledging they would conduct the trial with “impartial justice.”
Yet, no matter the Republican’s lies and self-deceptions, Abernathy must still prevent the perception to take hold that it’s the Democratic Party that “distinctively stands for truth, justice and the American Way.”
It only seems that way, says Abernathy. Speaking of insults, Trump and his supporters impugn the integrity of Democrats when he questions their motives. Democrats who attack Trump and the neo-fascist MOVA movement he leads, “do so less because they are offended or alarmed than because they think it’s the strategy that will maintain or expand their power.”
If you think otherwise, he says, “your innocence is enviable.”
I think he meant naivete. I'm just glad someone is jealous of me.