There is no ‘resistance’ inside the Republican Party
by Tom Toles
Is it “insubordination” when you try to fix your boss’s mistakes without telling him? Or just being a “good employee”? Is it “heroic” to anonymously point out publicly what is only whispered privately, or is it “cowardly”? Is it “smart” to debate these distinctions, or just more D.C. “navel gazing”?
Debates about terminology and intentions have some value. About a minute’s worth. But these questions become eye-crossingly pointlessness when the train is going too fast for the curve ahead and isn’t slowing down.
Another term we can dispense with is “resistance” to Trump inside the Republican Party. It isn’t real, and in the event it is indistinguishable from “enabling.” Whom are these people trying to fool? Themselves? If the Republican Party were in the business of meaningfully checking Trump’s dangerous behavior, you’d be plenty aware of it. You wouldn’t have to parse and wonder about identities and effectiveness.
What you’d see is a congressional request for Trump’s tax returns, for starters. What you’d see is broad-based, unambiguous support for the Mueller probe, coupled with congressional hearings into the same subject matter. And hearings on emoluments and other conflicts of interest to go with them.
What you wouldn’t see is breakneck speed in appointing a Supreme Court justice who is cagey about how far he would go to protect wrongdoing by the president who appointed him.
The so-called internal resistance comes right out and says it wants the president to “succeed.” The real resistance wants him controlled and escorted out of power. Dangerous and amoral are charges enough. You remove that person from the vicinity of power as quickly as possible. Because you know what? Dangerous and amoral people can’t be trusted with power. Why, they’ve even been known to seize more of it when they see an ocean of enablers around them. And to daily broaden and deepen the institutionalization of corruption up and down the chain of power in the meantime.
The so-called internal resistance is in fact just another cagey ring of facilitators inside the Republican cordon of protection around this dangerous, amoral president. The only way to resist it is to resoundingly vote against them. And soon.
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OCU
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