The Republican Party in a Nutshell

Under the leadership of Donald Trump, the GOP had lost the House, Senate and White House, watched idly as hundreds of thousands of people died in a pandemic that could have been contained with a bare modicum of competence, and watched again as a sitting president exhorted an angry mob to smash their way into the seat of congress so they could kill the leadership of same. This incredible totality of disgrace and infamy, in the end, was not enough to inspire a final break from the author of all this misery.

The GOP civil war is over for now, and Trump remains the core power within the Republican Party. QAnon devotee Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk are the new face of the party. . . . There is an old saying: If there are 11 people seated at a dinner table with a fascist, and none of them are denouncing the fascist, there are 12 fascists at that table.

That is the Republican Party in a nutshell.

There is no cooperating with this mayhem. There is no trying to get along, offering concessions, or searching for bipartisanship.

. . . The Republican Party today is about one thing: Using democracy to destroy democracy, and all in the name of their thwarted autocratic leader. They don’t want to make deals. They want to take, and take, and that is all.

You don’t make deals with that if you are the Democrats. You defeat it, using the majorities millions of voters and grassroots activists labored to provide you. You pass legislation by hook or by crook that improves people’s lives whether they want it or not. FDR’s Tennessee Valley Authority program is instructive: You win, make things better for people, and wait for the light bulb moment to arrive.

Today’s GOP is a beast. You don’t negotiate with rabid dogs. You’re a damn fool if you try.

– William Rivers Pitt
Excerpted from “Stop Trying to Make This About 'Unity'
– There’s No Uniting With Fascists”
TruthOut
January 30, 2021

Related Off-site Links:
Extremists Like Marjorie Taylor Greene Are the Real Face of the New Republican Party – Lloyd Green (The Guardian, February 6, 2021).
The False Equivalence Between the Democratic Left and the Republican Right Is Absurd – Jeffrey C. Isaac (Common Dreams, February 3, 2021).
Democracy or the White Supremacist Mob: Which Side Is the Republican Party On? – Richard Wolffe (The Guardian, February 3, 2021).
Is Far-Right QAnon Conspiracy Theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene the New Face of the GOP? – Democracy Now! (February 1, 2021).
Growing Number of Republicans Decide to Walk Away From the GOP – Steve Benen (MSNBC News, February 1, 2021).
The Republican Party Is a Fascist Cult – Noah Colbert (NU Political Review, January 11, 2021).

UPDATE: The Republican Party Must Be Purged Like the Nazis and Fascists – Thom Hartmann (Common Dreams, April 13, 2021).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Acknowledging Where We Are
• Marianne Williamson on America’s “Cults of Madness”
• “The Republican Party Has Now Made It Official: They Are a Cult”
• “Fascism Is Upon Us”
• Cornel West: Quote of the Day – December 3, 2020
• Progressive Perspectives on the 2020 U.S. Election Results
• Republicans Don’t Care About Demorcacy
• Trump’s Playbook

Image: Kristen Solberg.