OK, Mob Republicans, Now What?

With the settling of the inauguration dust we're gradually learning more about what the Democrats who work at the White House want to do with the power President Joe Biden won in November. The same goes for the Democratic Party's leadership teams in Congress. Their agenda is pretty much there for all to see. Meanwhile, the mixed signals emanating from the Republican Party are steadily getting less understandable but more ominous. 

 

Now what?

 

Does Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), the Senate's minority leader, want to return to the way it was in 2009, when he gladly opposed everything Obama? Called himself the "Grim Reaper." Or, in keeping with their maneuvers to curry favor with Trumpists, maybe Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx) and Sen. Josh Hawley prefer the time before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 -- an era in which institutionalized discrimination kept the underclass of Americans in their place?

 

What about the other Republicans in Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election results, to install Donald Trump as President-For-Life? It doesn't look like those Republicans want to go back in time, to relive the past. They seem to have a radical agenda for the future. It appears some of them consider the January 6th insurrectionists to be new wave Republican activists; perhaps we should call them "Mob Republicans." 

 

After all, just because they fling hate at liberals they like to call, "socialists," continuing to consider them to be "conservatives" is ridiculous. Mob rule is never conservative. 

 

So what the hell does the Insurrection Wing of the GOP want?

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Growing up with the echos of World War II being ubiquitous, rarely did I hear any good words said about former British Prime Minister (1937-40) Neville Chamberlain. In that time, instead of a seeing him as a failed seeker of peace who meant well, he was commonly viewed as a weak leader who coddled and emboldened Adolph Hitler. Chamberlain's concessions to Hitler leading up to the war were widely characterized as terrible mistakes that were timid in a shameful way. 

During height of the Cold War the loudest voices condemning Chamberlain as a wimp were usually those of right-wing Republicans. All of which stokes my curiosity about how today's right-wing Republicans can still be comfortable with how blowhard Trump hasn't missed a chance to talk softly to Vladimir Putin. 

Hey, isn't Putin yet another brutal dictator who's just as anti-American as can be? 

While some Republicans have always been partial to blustery trash talk and striking cock-of-the-walk poses, most conservatives used to stand firm on the notion they were all about hard-edged reality and protecting the status quo. That, while they labeled liberal Democrats who called for justice and respecting nature as "dreamers."

Now modern Republican politicians talk about "alternative facts." When they see votes in pretending that evolution is a myth they don't even appear to believe in science. Please note, there really was a time when conservatives supposedly stood for prudently protecting -- conserving! -- the nation's assets and resources. There's hardly much of that sort of thinking left in the Trumpist approach to governing.  

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However, we've seen plenty of how the activists of the Insurrection Wing of the GOP like to disturb the peace and cow the easily cowed. But beyond waving flags and denying reality, what do they really want in the long run? 

 

"Stop the Steal" is a slogan. It's a slogan based on a lie. It's not the title of a new plan for how to run the government efficiently. 

 

Other than seizing power and stomping on the faces of their least favorite politicians, what the hell do the terrorists who stormed the Capitol actually want to do? How would those violent insurrectionist Republicans of January 6th truly improve the system, when about all they can do well is torture the truth? 

 

Speaking of truth, let's acknowledge reality: Instead plans to govern, for the insurrectionists, what stands out are their churning desires to trample on tenets pertaining to forming a "more perfect union," as outlined in the Constitution. 

 

Just as Trump never had a plan to fix the nation's monstrous health care problem. Likewise, he never formed a national COVID-19 plan. With Trump running the show there have only been schemes for living in the moment and dominating all he surveys. That isn't likely to change with him sulking in exile at Mar-a-Lago. 

Moreover, the Insurrection Wing of the GOP wouldn't know a step-by-step plan if it stepped in one. Recklessly charging ahead without a plan seems to be an integral part of the Trumpist brand of nihilism and a significant part of its charm for his numbskull fans.

 

Accordingly, since the true momentum of Trumpism is being fueled in great part by the festering anger of white guys seeking wicked thrills, it seems to me the Insurrection Wing of the GOP is bound to split into feuding factions. 

 

Bottom line: In the long run, isn't the Trumpist wing of the GOP mostly a big-ass suicide cult?  

 

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