Kathleen Parker

With the electoral eviction of Donald Trump from the Oval Office, Republicans had a shot at redemption and resurrection.

They missed and failed — and deserve to spend the next several years in political purgatory. The chaos now enveloping what’s left of the Grand Old Party after four years of catering to an unstable president is theirs to own. Where conservatism once served as a moderating force — gently braking liberalism’s boundless enthusiasm — the former home of ordered liberty has become a halfway house for ruffians, insurrectionists and renegade warriors.

What does Trump have on these people, one wonders? The continuing loyalty of so many to a man so demonstrably dangerous can’t be explained by “the base,” a word never more aptly applied. What secrets were shared by Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who, after blaming Trump for the Jan. 6 mob attack, visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago this week to make amends? It seems that The Don, yet another appropriate nickname, need only purse his button lips and whistle to summon his lap dogs to Palm Beach, there to conspire for the next Big Lie.

A resolution to expel Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from Congress was drafted on Jan. 28, following her recently unveiled endorsements of political violence. (The Washington Post)

The party’s end was inevitable, foreshadowed in 2008 when little-boy Republican males, dazzled by the pretty, born-again, pro-life Alaska governor, thought Sarah Palin should be a heartbeat away from the presidency. The dumbing down of conservatism, in other words, began its terminal-velocity plunge, with a wink and a pair of shiny red shoes. Palin cast a spell as potent as the poppy fields of Oz, but turned the United States into her own moose-poppin,’ gum-smackin’ reality show.

Forget Kansas. We’re not in America anymore.

Eight years of Barack Obama added insult to injury and paved the way for Trump — a gaudier, cinematic version of the “thrillah from Wasilla.” Seizing upon our every worst instinct, he turned Palin’s lipsticked pig into a herd of seething, primitive barbarians. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is warning of yet more violence by domestic extremists, presumably from the ranks of the mob and QAnon conspiracists who stormed the Capitol with blood on their minds.

For Donald Trump, you went down this road? Either Trump has a stockpile of incriminating videos — his people have people, you know — or today’s Republicans are the weakest, wimpiest, most pathetic crop of needy nincompoops in U.S. history.

Suddenly, the “good ones” are worried about their newest member, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a QAnon-promoting female version of Trump — only without the charm. You begin to see how this monster mutates like a certain virus into ever-more-dangerous versions of itself. Among other things, Greene embraces the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and the slaughter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., were staged. One struggles for words, but I’ll settle for “creep.”

Recently unearthed video shows Greene chasing David Hogg, the Parkland student who rose to public prominence as a gun-control activist after the February 2018 shooting, goading him to respond to her insinuation that his ability to get appointments with U.S. senators when she couldn’t obviously meant he was a public relations spawn and not a survivor of a terrorist attack.

I confess to early uncertainty about Hogg, who was preternaturally adept at media management and public speaking, suddenly materializing from the fog of horror. But the notion that he was somehow complicit in a manufactured act of mass murder is beyond the pale even for the farthest right.

Good work, GOP. You got yourself a live one. Naturally, Greene has been assigned to the Education and Labor Committee.

Going forward, not only will House Republicans be associated with a colleague who “liked” a Twitter post calling for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s murder. They’ll be attached to QAnon, which promotes the extraordinary fiction that Trump was leading a war against Satan-worshiping pedophiles and cannibals, whose leadership includes Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks and, oh, by the way, yours truly, as well as U2’s Bono.

To those Republicans who can read: You own all of this. The party isn’t doomed; it’s dead. The chance to move away from Trumpism, toward a more respectful, civilized approach to governance that acknowledges the realities of a diverse nation and that doesn’t surrender to the clenched fist, has slipped away. What comes next is anybody’s guess. But anyone who doesn’t speak out against the myths and lies of fringe groups, domestic terrorists and demagogues such as Trump deserves only defeat — and a lengthy exile in infamy. Good riddance.

I better change my voter ID card party affiliation.

WAPO op-ed, just as bad as the New York Times
Zzzzzzzzzz...........Snort 🥱 😴🥱 😴🥱 😴🥱 😴

It Can't Happen Here
Sinclair Lewis
1935


The novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values.


Great American novel. Been suggesting it for a decade here...well before Trump.

not sure Trump did not promise them as well.

But do you see Biden doing the other parts of the novel's description?


...a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values.

Sinclair was a rabble rouser and a muckraker. And a smart one at that.

started a zillion years ago, must admit I did not finish it.
I am somewhat familiar with Rand's views, don't think I'd be an all-in supporter.

I'm more of a fan of owing something to the collective good.
Feels more natural to me.

not upton sinclair...sinclair lewis.
Try reading him as a grown up, might see things differently since you probably have a better understanding of 1930's Hitler fawning society and what left the door open.

Sorry that made me chuckle. I can’t help but feel responsible.

He'll get to that Executive Order this upcoming week.

it ends with Trump smiting all the Democrat Commie Pedophile Cannibal Satan Worshippers and being named President for Life.
How Lewis could foresee all this in 1935 is one of life's mysteries.

Read your f'n post,read both... move over your standing in the light.

The new boss is the same as the old boss... won't get fooled again.

quoting song lyrics.
Cool.

too silly for stuff like this.

so silly that it's unfathomable the inroads they have made in one of the major parties.

Of course you find them silly. Your like normal. Caught ya napping though.

you hide it well!
I can only hope I am not obviously imbibing when I get cray cray

Because drunk as Pelosi is already taken???

Sadly, the op-ed may be pretty damn close to correct. Conservatives fell asleep at the wheel. They got freaked with the okey doke. Libs control the house, senate and presidency now. Along with the media, academia and the interwebs.

Conservatives are f---ed. And not in the good way.

If a conservative site like Parler can be shut down and no internet provider will grant them a platform... pretty much trampling the 1st amendment... 1984 is here, folks. All dissenting voices shall be silenced.

Silenced by the government? Nope. Learn the 1st amendment.

All the silenced folks sure are squawking loudly on all the outlets that will have them. Hawley gets way more face time and print time then before he was silenced.

Someone needs to actually read 1984 rather than repeating what they heard.

There is absolutely nothing "conservative" about parler or the far right... conservatives will be just fine through all of this...

But the far right is done growing... no one takes them seriously...

That’s why attacks on the press by trump are particularly disgusting.... but not against the 1st amendment.

The government is not infringing on anyone’s 1st amendment rights in this instance. And I thought we were against interpretation of what they may have meant in today’s society. Isn’t that the court nominees litmus test.

What an effing entitlement crowd the extreme wacko right has become. Not to mention the victimhood of it all. Those dems sure are smart to keep tricking and pulling things over on the dumb republicans. They managed to overturn a Trump landslide by getting multiple independent states, many run by republicans, to fix the top of the ticket while not fixing the lower part of the ticket all while leaving no traces of evidence that anyone can produce. Brilliant! they should lead things if they really could pull that off.... which they didn't.

Welcome to the new world order.

Your apology to Fox news is appreciated.

Jets and Sharks. OK Maria.

^^^^^

Would it still be accurate if companies like Google (Youtube) and Facebook take subsidies from taxpayers? I would guess Twitter does too but not sure.

Because initially I thought the same way as you and TW...