The Smoking Ruins of Irresponsibility

Watergate legend (@carlbernstein) blows up on Trump’s inner circle as new bombshell revelations come to light: ‘Why the hell did they sit still?’ https://t.co/ZkgRrbYuIg

— Raw Story (@RawStory) July 15, 2021

"We need to take this moment and say, how did we get to a place where the leader of the American military compared the president of the United States to Hitlerian fascism?" said Bernstein. "We didn't say it. He did. This is a moment. That is that's the importance of this book and perhaps the importance of some of the other books. We are finally getting behind the scenes as to what our leaders were saying and knew about Trump."

"But the other thing is, on our air, cable news, this network, MSNBC, Trump's derangement was reported, reportorially nailed down," added Bernstein. "A good number of people — myself included, but I don't want to take the credit for this — a number of people early on said, this is a deranged, dangerous, authoritarian president of the United States, starting in 2017."

Not just "reportorially:"

The clip just played on @CNNnewsroom in which Gen. Milley talked last November 11 about not having taken an oath to any individual was an implicit reference to Hitler's having made the Reichswehr swear an oath to him personally in 1934, after President Hindenburg's death.

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) July 15, 2021

Party uber alles.

"And yet his party — the people around him in the White House — they did not go public, including some of the people who are quoted in these books. Why the hell did they sit still instead of warning the American people out loud, instead of just talking to us? We have a lot of questions to answer as we know in an expanded way finally what has occurred in this terrible, terrible, awful period of our history."

Pretty much because no one wanted to take responsibility.  The real power of the "At long last, sir, have you no shame?" moment for McCarthy was that someone finally took responsibility for standing up to him.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Joseph N. Welch stood before McCarthy and took full responsibility for his words.  That didn't destroy McCarthy with a single blow, but after that McCarthy was over.  Consider, by contrast, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.  Neither one thought they would be responsible for the Constitutional crisis of Mike Pence, or the House and Senate, refusing the election of Joe Biden.  They knew to a certainty that wouldn't happen, which is why they acted they way they did.  They knew they were safe, that the system would save them.  Even after the interruption and the assault of the Capitol, the system had worked and they could go on with their political theater.  It's all theater to them, it's not reality.  They follow safely in the footsteps of Newt Gingrich.  Donald Trump may be the reality TeeVee President, but Newt Gingrich was in office and impeaching Clinton before reality TV was a gleam in some producer's eye.  Hawley and Cruz took no responsibility for their words, because they knew they didn't have to.

And no one has had to yet.  But that isn't a failure of a governmental system, or a legal system.  

The FBI's investigation of the US Capitol Insurrection now involves 55 of the agency's 56 U.S. field offices

This is a national case pic.twitter.com/84gUc8CLJt

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) July 14, 2021

It's the complete moral collapse of a political party, a party whose only responsibility is to holding government power, and to not using it.  The only ideology left in the GOP is not to use government power, but to not use it.  Under Trump they passed a massive tax break for the rich, Paul Ryan's entire political raison d'etre.  It's not a coincidence Ryan resigned from the House soon after.  He was finished.  He'd done what he set out to do.  So was the GOP.  They didn't try to pass any major legislation after that, not even a second bite at the apple of Obamacare repeal.

The problem in this country is not Donald Trump's hold on the GOP.  The problem in this country is not the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers.  The problem in this country is that one political party has ceased to be either political or a party.  It's only interest is in being a dead hand on the tiller of the ship of state, and drawing a government pension.  Tell me what else Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and Matt Gaetz and Gym Jordan and MTG and Lauren Boebert and Mo Brooks and Louie Gohmert really want to do.  Let's face it, it's easy work and no heavy lifting.  MTG doesn't even have any committee responsibilities, and Lauren Boebert being as dumb as a post and ignorant as a stone is not a bar to being employed.

Nice work, if you can get it.