Did Matt Gaetz tear the House GOP apart?
Did Matt Gaetz tear the House GOP apart like this headline claims?
No. He did not.
Certainly, he desecrated the House when he helped incite an insurrection that saw the Confederate battle flag finally breach the Capitol Rotunda 156 years after Appomattox. It’s absolutely true that he betrayed his oath, and carries himself like a graduate of an “affluenza” academy that turns privileged and spoiled young men into irredeemable punks. Beyond that, he is petulant, arrogant, dishonest, unserious and an avatar for this age of lightness, decay and political rancidity. Looking at Matt Gaetz leaves a casual observer wondering if the “Congressional Chuckie” is actually a real person. He’s like Dennis the Menace crossbred with an evil Ken Doll and a menacing roadside clown. He is simultaneously preposterous, vapid, and dangerous. He is a luminescent beacon of our national decay and political crisis, but he did not break the House.
Cowardice did. I watched it happen from the sets of MSNBC shows beginning in 2015.
Once upon a time almost every single elected Republican in American politics held the exact same position regarding Donald Trump as me. It was uncompromising, unrelenting and principled until….Trump started winning, and then the line fell away until there were only a very few people left who would maintain loyalty to country over faction and principle over opportunity. Elise Stefanik is a perfect case study: empty, soulless and hollow.
At the beginning, the first sign of the trouble ahead was the fear of stating the obvious that took hold concerning Trump. Every single Republican, from the pathological prevaricator Kellyanne Conway to Lindsey Graham, would go on television and say one thing on camera and something entirely opposite when the camera lights went off. They would laugh and say he was crazy and wouldn’t win — until he did, and then the double talk completely stopped. They fell in line and helped ignite a dangerous fascistic movement that is violent, illiberal and profoundly dangerous. In the end, most everyone of them voted to strip the presidency from the winner of the election chosen by the American people, and give it to the loser to sate his insatiable appetite for power and attention. In that instant, they betrayed the American Revolution, the blood sacrifice of over 1,000,000 American who died to maintain the Republic, and the millions more who built America over two and a half centuries. Shameful isn’t the word.
Two months before the 2020 election I said the following:
What still staggers me is how many Republicans crossed the line of no return with Trump. It is what broke the GOP forever. There is a simple truth. The small minority of Republicans who will not get in line with regard to denying reality, stealing elections and installing a demagogic madman as dictator cannot function in a coalition with those that do. Jonathan Martin, one of the most astute journalists covering American politics, wrote about the coalition dynamic last week.
Of course, the fundamental issue at hand is with whom do Republicans like Liz Cheney, who defended the US Constitution, have more in common: MAGA Republicans who tried to burn the US Constitution, or Democrats who defended it? How much insulation does the magic letter next to your name actually mean against that reality? Apparently for most elected Republicans it offers total, absolute and forever immunity for everything. Party over country always. What is clear is that the party flag flies above the American flag in the MAGA party, and when Matt Gaetz looks in the mirror though he can’t see himself, we can see him. In fact, all of us have been able to see all of them for a long while, in spite of the American media’s billion dollar partnership with the worst cause since the Confederacy.
Matt Gaetz didn’t break the party and neither did Donald Trump. What broke it was spineless men and hollow women. What broke it was cowardice and ambitions for power. What broke it was a dearth of patriotism and a deficit of love for America and Americans.
Here we are. The chaos will roll on this week in a dangerous world moving towards the inferno.
Who did it?
It wasn’t Matt Gaetz. It was all of us for not stopping this years ago.
The American people — 332 million of us — must decide. Here we are. It’s not too late to stop what’s coming next, but the hours are winnowing. Perhaps the cost of fools and liars is upon us. Certainly, the cost has arrived for Israel. Now the whole world stands at the edge.
I lived in a poor, rural part of Virginia for eight years. To the extent they voted, most of my neighbors were Republicans before Trump and virulently Maga afterwards. Both identifications were completely contrary to their interests. As an example, many had no health insurance, although they were employed. When a Democratic governor and legislature were finally able to extend Medicaid to the working poor, you'd think they'd realize who improved their lives. You'd think wrong. They are awash in grievance. The GOP reflects its voters. A shame.
I agree Steve with everything you say, but our country was broken because of several factors, including Reagan’s embrace of the far-right religious nut jobs.
Furthermore, the 2008 economic debacle, which required a trillion dollar bailout (more than 2.5 trillion if you count quantitative easing), while WS still managed to pay themselves record bonuses, at a time when millions were losing jobs monthly, and no one was held to account.
Additionally, mistrust in our government and institutions after 9/11, culminating in a manufactured war in Iraq, including Implementation of the Patriot Act (domestic spying), which several Directors of National Security lied about during congressional hearings.
This led to the rise of the Tea Party and eventually the FreeDumb caucus and the likes of Gaetz, Gomar, MTG, Boebart and others.
Nothing occurs in a vacuum. Donald Trump and every flamethrower in the Republican Party, owe their thanks to the Reagan, but mostly the Cheney/Rumsfeld administration; or what I call the inception of dumbing down of America.