John Minchillo / AP
In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, Trump supporters participate in a rally in Washington. Far-right social media users for weeks openly hinted in widely shared posts that chaos would erupt at the U.S. Capitol while Congress convened to certify the election results.
Friday, Jan. 15, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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For five brutal years, President Donald Trump worked with his every breath to divide America. He approached every problem as an opportunity to drive us apart amid a torrent of lies, venom, false accusations and blind self-interest.
Meanwhile, GOP leaders slavishly served this president who made it clear he represents only his supporters. They amplified Trump’s divisive rhetoric, repeated his incendiary lies and abetted him as he vilified those who failed to give him their unconditional loyalty. Whether they were government officials simply doing their duty, or members of the media, or peaceful protesters demanding social justice outside the White House, or even Trump-appointed Cabinet members who didn’t respond enthusiastically enough to his poisonous ideas and decisions, Republican leaders attacked them.
In Trump’s party, there are two types of Americans: Those who support him and enemies of the people.
And yet now that Trump has been impeached again a week after his mob, fueled by GOP lies about the election, hunted lawmakers in the Capitol, these same Republicans shamelessly rise to call for “unity.” The ones who have spent years stoking hatred among their supporters of the “other,” whoever that might be, now make florid speeches contending that removing Trump from office before his term expires would widen the rift among Americans. It should not be lost on anyone that what underlies that argument is that impeaching Trump further angered domestic terrorists and insurrectionists. Never forget these Republicans, because they are publicly calling to bow to terrorism.
As they kowtow to terrorism and the big lie that the election was stolen, these same Republicans accuse those who pursued impeachment of being divisive. There is nothing divisive about living up to your oath of office and defending the nation from a president who is a clear and present danger to our republic and who incited an insurrection. It is the responsible thing to do. Indeed, the only thing to do.
The hypocrisy of a GOP soft on violent insurrection after years of determined efforts to divide our nation is galling.
The party was the primary enabler of the Trump-led march to extremism, supporting the hideous lie that a free and fair election was stolen and helping create the monster that materialized in the form of the mob violence at the U.S. Capitol.
Even when speaking against impeachment, no Republican corrected the record with the simple truth they all know, but won’t admit: There was no election fraud.
Cowards, all.
The party could have brought Trump to heel at any time, but was too afraid of a hostile tweet to stand up for American unity. And then the Republicans dove into the most dangerous move of all: promulgating the big lie that the election was stolen, a cruel act of violence against America that will lead to years of disunity as some members of the electorate stew in furious juices believing Trump’s ego-soothing fantasy.
Trump and the GOP big lie have caused such damage that now 20,000 National Guard troops must be stationed across a locked-down capital to guarantee the safety of the incoming president and vice president. Contemplate that. In our precious America, the Republican Party has brought us so low without moving to cure the problem they created. One president and one party are so dangerous that the lives of a fairly elected president, vice president and lawmakers are at risk because of the mobs they have encouraged.
Now they call for reconciliation while they stand on the floor of the same building where they watched in horror as Trump’s mob raged through it, and to this moment justify Trump’s violence against America?
Don’t believe them. They’ve surrendered any shred of credibility to stand as a party of unification.
Instead, they still cower behind Trump, offering meaningless condemnations of the violence — meaningless because they’re not backed by any action whatsoever. When someone like Rep. Liz Cheney breaks ranks and makes the responsible call for Trump’s immediate ouster, they turn on her like wolves. When election officials, including Republicans, present an avalanche of data debunking Trump’s claims of voter fraud, they call them liars and oppose the certification of the Electoral College results.
Through it all, they embolden the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, neo-Nazis and other violent white-supremacist groups by repeating the lies that Trump has used to inflame and mobilize them. And now, as yet unconfirmed reports suggest that a GOP lawmaker gave insurrectionists detailed tours of the Capitol the day before the attack to guide their way.
They do all this despite being fully aware of the human consequences of Trump’s destructive presidency — the deaths and destruction in the Capitol, the terroristic threats to election workers and their families, the horrific spike in hate crimes under Trump, the calls among insurrectionists for a second civil war, and so much more. Even Republicans admit they are terrified of Trump’s mob and the death threats they so gleefully share.
Americans clashing with Americans. Americans plotting against Americans. Americans buying unprecedented numbers of weapons in fear of other Americans. The nation desperately needs unity, no question.
If Republicans have any legitimate concern for it, they need to stop acting as if the only road to reconciliation is for the majority of American voters to simply swallow Trump’s lie about voter fraud and resign themselves to another four years of the Trump presidency.
It doesn’t work that way.
The key to unity instead lies in Republicans’ hands. It involves telling the truth with an unequivocal message validating that it was a fair election, an absolute renunciation of the claims fueling the “stop the steal” madness, a disavowal of QAnon and the other insane conspiracy theories that Trump has leveraged to create his mob, and a warning to the violent extremists in their ranks that they will be held accountable for any crimes they commit.
The Trump presidency is over. The question of how long and how badly it continues to damage America rests primarily in the hands of the Republicans who remain in office.
Until they take firm actions to repair the destruction they’ve caused, their calls for unity are self-evidently insincere.
