Republicans promoting extremism

by Tom Maertens

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is oblivious to irony. In her rebuttal to the State of the Union, she said the choice now is between “normal and crazy.”

That was after Republicans were seen jumping up and down on the House floor and shouting insults at Biden.

This is the party that promotes a “deep state” conspiracy, that elected a pathological liar as president who attempted to overthrow the government, and who demanded that the Constitution be terminated to restore him to power. He is now facing four criminal investigations.

Former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine General, related how Trump was “far more limited, petty, immoral, and incurious and, frankly stupid than he could ever have imagined...”

It runs in the party. Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows claimed that Italian satellites flipped the vote count during the 2020 election to help Biden. As bizarre as that is, a Republican Attorney General, Bill Barr, traveled to Italy with his judicial henchman and co-conspirator, John Durham, to question the Italian government about that claim.

Trump had his acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, call his Italian counterpart and ask him to investigate. Instead, the Italians revealed another potential financial crime by Trump, which Barr deep-sixed.

They elected people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who publicly advocated executing high-ranking democrats in 2018 and 2019, and another, Paul Gosar who was removed from a committee for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another member of Congress. His six siblings want him removed from Congress: “I consider him a traitor to this country. I consider him a traitor to his family,” Dave Gosar said.

Taylor Greene has claimed a Jewish space laser started the Camp Fire in 2018, that 9/11 was an “inside job,” that school massacres were staged with crisis actors, and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be handled with a “bullet to the head.” Additionally, she was featured speaker at a white supremacist event where her fellow speakers praised Hitler and called for Fauci to be hanged.

Attendees chanted “Putin, Putin” while Russian bombs were dropping on Ukraine. Greene also claimed during a congressional hearing that an elementary school in Illinois had received $5.1 billion in COVID-19 federal relief funding to develop a critical race theory curriculum.

Then there is Lauren Boebert … Sarah Palin without the smarts … and George Santos, a classic sociopath.

The Department of Homeland Security identifies American extremist violence, particularly among white-supremacist groups, as the country’s “most persistent and lethal threat.”

That describes the violent Trump cult that participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, including the Boogaloo Bois, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, neo-Nazis, and the Three Percenters; FBI Director Wray recently described such groups as domestic terrorists.

Trump has even met with avowed anti-Semite and neo-Nazi, Nick Fuentes, along with vocal anti-Semite (Kan)Ye West. Such actions may have encouraged violence by the far right which has been behind recent attacks on electrical facilities.

DHS reports that there have been at least nine such attacks in the last three months, which left thousands without electricity.

The Anti-Defamation League has obtained the membership list of the far-right Oathkeepers; they found 373 members in law enforcement organizations around the country, including 12 chiefs of police and 13 sheriffs. This is neo-Nazi infiltration of our law enforcement.

This is the party that has decided to obstruct raising the debt ceiling, despite the disastrous consequences of defaulting on the debt. Republicans raised the debt ceiling three times under Trump without objection or hostage-taking.

A clause in the Fourteenth Amendment essentially says that the feds cannot renege on debts, meaning the cap, which is based on a statute, could be declared unconstitutional.

The language is so sweeping — public debt “shall not be questioned” — that it seems to prohibit repudiation of the debt and require on-time payment in full.

Also, Article I, Section 10 says: “States shall not impair the obligation of contracts” — i.e., the public debt, which triggering a default would do. Because Article I forbids the states from defaulting by legislative fiat, it is unthinkable to believe that Congress might do the same thing — and even worse, to do it as a matter of whim.

Their only other “policy” is to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop, a right-wing obsession.

Beyond these issues, the Republican Party supports voter suppression, gerrymandering, and Christian nationalism. They want to control women’s bodies, cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and cut taxes on the wealthy; it’s a party dominated by seditionists, misfits, dimwits and culture warriors.

Tom Maertens served in the White House under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.