There are 535 members of Congress. Some of them are great. A few of them (Louie Gohmert) are dumb as a box of rocks. And then some of them are real true traitors who need to be expelled.
Fully 139 Republican congresspeople objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election win. In an ideal world, all of these people would be expelled. But it’s not an ideal world, and some of these members were just good Germans worried about a mean tweet. Are they cowards? Certainly, but they are not the nexus of the problem. It makes more sense for Democrats to focus on the rot in the center—the ooey gooey maggot-ridden core of the Coup Caucus.
It was Tuesday Jan. 12 when gun enthusiast Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado walked through Congress’ newly installed metal detectors and refused to allow the Capitol Police to search her bag. She caused a mini-fracas. Multiple Republican House members started refusing to be searched or refused to go through the metal detector at all. “I was physically restrained!” complained Arkansas Republican Steve Womack. Hell hath no fury like a congressional Republican forced to walk through a metal detector.
Boebert, a first-termer who pulled off a big upset in her primary, is famous for saying that she would bring her Glock to Congress and for her gun-themed restaurants where she once served “tainted pork sliders [that] poisoned dozens of attendees at a local rodeo, who came down with symptoms ranging from nausea to bloody diarrhea.” On the morning of the Capitol riots she tweeted “Today is 1776,” and then later that day she tweeted, “The speaker has been removed from the chamber.”
Later, Democratic Senator Brian Schatz tweeted, “We were specifically instructed by those protecting us not to tell anyone, including our family, where exactly we were, for reasons that remain obvious.” We don’t know what Boebert’s role in the riots was, but at best it was cheerleader, at worst it was something more sinister. How can this person be allowed to stay in Congress when she is very obviously a threat to her colleagues?
Another problematic new member is the terrifying Marjorie Taylor Greene. The former QAnon-following House member is most famous for refusing to wear a mask to her swearing-in and getting into a screaming match about it.
She is one of those Republicans for whom Fox News is way too squishy. She’s all OANN. She recently tweeted, “President Trump will remain in office. This Hail Mary attempt to remove him from the White House is an attack on every American who voted for him. Democrats must be held accountable for the political violence inspired by their rhetoric.” During the impeachment trial, she wore a mask that said “Censored” as she gave her floor speech that was aired on cable news channels and on CSPAN.
Then there are the congressmen who were directly involved in the “Stop the Steal” rally, which eventually became the Capitol riots. The most problematic of these is Mo Brooks, who, while wearing a “fire Pelosi” baseball cap, told the crowd, “Today is the day that American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”
The two other congressmen named by MAGA grifter and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander were Andy Biggs and Paul A. Gosar. Gosar spoke at a different “Stop the Steal'' rally, and Biggs recorded a video message for that very same rally. Gosar tweeted this on the day of the rally: “Biden should concede. I want his concession on my desk tomorrow morning. Don’t make me come over there.” He tagged Ali.
And then there’s the question of the No. 1 and No. 2 Republicans in the House. Both Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise voted against the certifying the election. And while they aren’t the loudest, craziest, or stupidest members of the GOP, they are theoretically supposed to be the party’s leaders. McCarthy once knew better. In June 2016, he said “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” Who knows why McCarthy and Scalise became Trump sycophants. Likely because they knew that the base loved him, but they clearly have no judgment and shouldn’t have leadership positions in the GOP.
It’s all well and good for me to say these traitorous traitors must be kicked out of Congress, but how will it happen? After all, Donald Trump has a death grip on the Republican Party, and if we’ve learned anything from the last four years it’s that politicians really don’t like to be primaried. At the pre-riot rally, the president’s large adult son threatened elected Republicans with primary challenges: “These guys better fight for Trump. Because if they’re not, guess what? I’m going to be in your backyard in a couple of months!”
The Republican Party may be chock-full of cowards (except for the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump), but corporations seem not to be cowards—they are refusing to donate to these anti-democracy candidates. Hallmark asked Senator Josh Hawley for their money back. These aren’t particularly woke companies (Walmart, Goldman Sachs, GE) either, but they have the ability to make Republicans grow a conscience. They can force the party to censure or remove these treasonous traitors.
These members of Congress tried to overturn our election, tried to make Trump president for life, tried to crush democracy. We must expel these traitors. There have to be consequences for overturning democracy, or we won’t be able to keep it.
