The GQP Insurrection Has Only Begun, And Democrats Must End it

The Republican Party, which I now refer to as the GQP, has already begun the second American civil war.

Let’s count the ways in which they are defying the federal government’s authority, denying its legitimacy, undermining our security for political gain, using violence to political ends, and seeking to tighten minority control of state governments. Their end-game is to retake the federal government, but short of that, breaking the ability of the federal government to govern.

They deny the legitimate and fair election of Joe Biden as President. They are essentially telling their adherents that the federal government is illegitimate and need not be obeyed, because Trump is the actual President. Of course, this is absolutely devoid of evidence and most of the insurrectionists were elected on the very same ballots they claim to be fraudulent, but the majority of their party claim to believe the Big Lie. This, alone, is bad enough, and constitutes a rebellion against the legitimately elected government of the United States. This has not happened since the election of Lincoln just before the Civil War. They are actively courting another one.

They committed a terrorist attack on the seat of our democracy in Congress on Jan 6. Now, of course, they deny it even happened, or claim that it wasn’t that bad, or it was not really Republicans who did it, or that it wasn’t extensively planned and coordinated to achieve a political goal. They are liars and criminals. The commission must get to the bottom of it all, ferret out the conspirators, and punish them criminally. They will do it again if they are allowed, maybe even this weekend as they rally in SUPPORT of the insurrection on Jan 6.

They are passing restrictive voter laws that clearly (and often admittedly) target Democratic-leaning voter demographics for suppression to insulate themselves against the wider electorate. They are intent on entrenching minority rule where they can to protect their political power against popular majorities in elections. They are dragging us toward a new era of democratic decline and racial division and oppression. They seek to reconstitute a race-based hierarchy to keep whites in control even as the nation’s demographics change in ways that are alarming to the racists in the party (note: not all Republicans are racists, but almost all racists are Republican, and Republican leaders are encouraging this trend). There is no longer any room in the GQP for anyone who is not a racist. If you are not a racist, it is time to leave the party or you risk supporting racist policies and candidates.

Even as they attempt to disenfranchise hostile voters, they are undermining confidence in democracy across the country and at every level. Their lies and propaganda about the security and reliability of the electoral process is right out of the Kremlin’s own playbook for wanna-be dictators. If you can convince your voters that elections are only valid if “the right” candidate wins, then your electorate will be fine with giving up on non-partisan and unbiased elections procedures. They even are going so far as to arrogate the power to decide and certify elections to themselves where they control the legislature. This is the end-game of this strategy: ending free and fair elections in the United States wherever they are able in favor of a mummery of the democratic process in which the result is predetermined.

They are challenging the constitutional order by selectively suspending constitutional rights in key states. Texas’ abortion law is only the trial balloon in this attempt to de facto repeal selected constitutional rights in states the GQP controls. I’m disgusted that the GQP majority of the SCOTUS allowed this obviously unconstitutional law to take effect; this alone warrants reform of the federal courts. Believe me, unless there is immediate and decisive push-back on the Texas abortion ban, there will be plenty of other states attempting such unconstitutional attacks on protected classes and rights. Everyone’s rights are under threat, not just women’s right to healthcare.

They seek to sow disorder and misery to ensure continued social unrest solely for political advantage. The GQP’s hostility to COVID control measures is not ideological (nor logical in any sense…), it is strategic. They have seeded and nurtured every hostility to masking, social distancing, quarantines, testing, and especially vaccines, not because it makes electoral sense (the vast majority of Americans are NOT in agreement with this nonsense) but because it continues the unrest and distress of the epidemic. They seek to use that energy, fear, paranoia, and distress for political gain. They are actively supporting policies that are killing people to try to ensure that Biden cannot close the book on the COVID epidemic and use that failure against him in the midterms and 2024. They are actively killing people to create a more favorable political environment.

They are resisting ANY and ALL legislative efforts to run the country. The GQP is stonewalling ANY legislation at the federal level for one political purpose: to weaken the state, to render Biden and the Democratic Congress ineffective at governance, in an effort to take back control. Not by superior ideas, merely due to fatigue and disgust with disfunction, which they believe always redounds to the benefit of the “out” party. They mustn’t be allowed to block efforts to end the pandemic, protect Americans’ constitutional rights (especially to vote), and promote economic growth, equity, and security. They do not care about the impact on Americans’ welfare or economic well-being, they only care about climbing back into power: even if it must be over a pile of hundreds of thousands of American corpses.

Make no mistake: the GQP is waging war on democracy, public health, the constitutional rights of Americans, and the constitutional order itself in order to hold and wield power for the minority of Americans they claim to represent. This is not a drill. They are waging a guerrilla war on America. In the statehouses, the courts, and on the streets, they are seeking to destroy America from within. Their troops are – for now – informal militias, Christian dominionists, gangs of racist thugs, misinformed and propagandized racist and nationalist dupes, and radicalized politicians too stupid, craven, or bigoted to resist the authoritarian slide of the GQP initiated by Trump. They have proven to the world on Jan 6th that they are willing to commit violence to get their way when they cannot achieve victory at the polls. When they demonstrate who they are, believe them. They have shown us all they are thugs and terrorists. Believe them. There will be more violence, and it will escalate unless they are utterly repudiated and defeated.

The Romans recognized an enemy of the state when they saw one, and every day after the First Punic War Cato reminded the Roman Senate, “Carthago Delenda Est”. Cartage must be destroyed. He believed that the Roman state would never be safe until Cartage was utterly destroyed. Today, the motto of Democrats must be “Trump Delenda Est”. American democracy and our constitutional order will never be safe until Trump and the party he infected are legally destroyed, electorally repudiated, and criminally punished for their crimes against America and her people. Democrats must use every tool of power at their command to end this second American Civil War before it goes any further.