"I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” Donald Trump said in the infamous Access Hollywood tape that caught him bragging about grabbing women by the private parts.
He was right. Republicans made him the figurehead of their party and, one month after that tape emerged, he was elected president. In 2021, he’s finally out of the White House but it turns out that “anything” also includes inciting a violent insurrection that left five people dead in a failed attempt to cancel a democratic election and keep himself in power.
In spite of the harrowing, explicit, and convincing evidence presented by their Democratic colleagues, a majority of Republican lawmakers still seem certain to acquit Trump for inspiring an insurrection. Which is no surprise, given how the actions of the alleged party of law and order over the past five years show that they actively support and endorse such wanton criminality. The “Blue Lives Matter” party doesn’t care that a cop was tortured and killed and 140 other officers injured.
Those Republican senators don’t care that Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president and most devoted bootlicker, was actively hunted by some in the MAGA mob simply for following the law and certifying the election. Senators from the party once known for its “compassionate conservatives” don’t care about the trauma and tears of their fellow legislators recounting the horrors of that day. The alleged “pro life” party doesn’t care about five people who died during the making of this failed revolt. The party that endlessly whines about nonexistent voter fraud is perfectly fine with Trump pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, to illegally “find” votes for him.
They care about nothing other than power, and will do anything to stay on the right side of their vicious, aggrieved base. The GOP that nurtured the monster of white grievance and victimhood, from slavery to Jim Crow to the Southern Strategy to Trumpism, is now held hostage by its insatiable, utterly destructive true believers.
My second takeaway is that Republicans will inevitably try again, subverting all democratic norms, laws and rules of decency in order to gain and hold on to power. What recent evidence can you show me that they won’t do it again?
“It’s good to be the king,” says Mel Brooks directly to the camera after his character, King Louis XVI, commits every vulgar and cruel transgression in History of the World, Part 1. For the current king of the GOP, Donald Trump, there will be zero accountability or admonishment, and, by extension, the same goes for his violent mob that includes armed militias, the Proud Boys, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists. This mob also includes the 147 lawmakers who supported The Big Lie and voted to decertify a free and fair election. They include Sens. Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and a dozen other co-conspirators now play-acting as impartial, objective jurors. According to eyewitnesses, Hawley couldn’t even be bothered to pay attention to the trial on Wednesday.
Just last week, over half of the House GOP gave a standing ovation to their resident anti-Semite and conspiracy theorist, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who actively supported the violent mob and has yet to offer any remorse or contrition. For her role in promoting white supremacist conspiracies about the “deep state” and Jewish-controlled space lasers, Republicans gave her a seat on the Education and Budget Committee, which has since, thankfully, been stripped from her. Imagine the enduring pain and sadness of former Representative Steve King of Iowa, an avowed white supremacist who was removed from his committee assignments and lost his election two years ago after Republican leadership turned on him for his awesome history of racism. He clearly missed his moment.
Instead, Republicans eyeing the White House, such as Nikki Haley, are urging the nation to give Donald Trump a break and “move on.” Personally, I find it difficult to unify with a political party whose adherents are literally storming the Capitol and looking to kill lawmakers to overturn the will of 80 million voters. But, maybe I’m just being intolerant and should broaden my horizons.
My third takeaway after watching the terrifying new footage of the violent mob Democrats showed us on Wednesday was that if that violent mob was composed mostly of Muslims or BLM protesters, instead of mostly white MAGA supporters, there would be chalk outlines on the cement and dead bodies throughout the U.S. Capitol. Nobody would “move on.” There would be endless hearings and investigations.
After the 9/11 terror attacks, we unleashed an unending War on Terror, invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, killed hundreds of thousands of people, and looked upon Muslim American citizens as perpetual suspects whose loyalty would forever be interrogated and questioned. We had widespread surveillance of Muslim communities, several congressional hearings on the alleged “unique radicalization” of Muslims, and even a registry program—NSEERS—that deported more than 13,000 Muslim immigrants from this country. In 2016, after all of that, Trump ran on a “Muslim Ban.”
Tanks rolled in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 . This summer, overwhelmingly peaceful calls for an end of police brutality and white supremacy were met with overwhelming police force.
But when you’re a violent white mob helping a Republican presidential candidate? Well, “they let you do it. You can do anything.” In fact, Republicans like Trump’s acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, will actively work to downplay the threat of white supremacy, the No. 1 domestic terror threat in America, and President Trump would fail to denounce it during a national debate. Instead, he’d tell the Proud Boys, now considered a terrorist group in Canada, “to stand back and stand by.” Well, they heard him, and they complied on Jan 6, 2021.
While this will inevitably end with Trump’s acquittal, this impeachment trial is still necessary and important because it is ultimately for posterity. It is to show future generations that the majority stood up against a hateful mob determined to shed blood and overturn an election to preserve white supremacy and minority rule. It’s to show that democracy, however flawed, still matters.
This trial is the evidence of the absurd double standards in this country where one of the two major political parties will engage in mental and moral gymnastics to rationalize and give cover to violent white mobs while demonizing the rest of us who peacefully protested and assembled for justice and equality.
The Republican Party let Trump do it to all of us for four years. It's merely a sneak preview of how they will enable and encourage the cruelty and terror of their future stars. The Democrats are at least trying to stand in their way. Let's hope we are witnessing a springtime for accountability and democracy.
