It’s been a week since I last shared my thoughts here. Like many of you, I get exhausted with the relentless bad news and I search out more pleasant ways to spend my time. At the same time, I increasingly get disgusted with the lame and inexcusable responses offered up by the MAGA crowd, Christian nationalists, Republican members of congress, and many of my friends here on St Simons Island and up in the north Georgia mountains. These range from outright lies, false equivalencies, vicious partisanship and simple silence when confronted by truth.
Unfortunately, the country has been in a political crisis since 2016, increasingly characterized by threats of violence and the loss of civility. Many seem unable to understand what is going on and what to do about it. The answer, of course, couldn’t be simpler – get rid of Trump, stop supporting him and those who are riding to success on his coattails. What else is there to know?
Our current political crisis will never end as long as it works for those profiting from it. It reminds me of the violence in Central America when I was there in the 1980s traveling on Fulbrights and studying social and political issues. Forces on the left and right kept the fighting going by hollowing out the center of the social and political establishment by assassinating and assailing those who would compromise and preach reconciliation. Repeatedly with vengeance they would kill the moderates to keep the conflicts going to maintain their own importance and control. It worked for a long time, the losers, of course, being the ordinary people – and the breakdown of society.
It strikes me that this is exactly what is happening here with the notable exception that we have not resorted to assassinations and physical violence yet. Instead we’ve resorted to threats of violence and the “assassination” of personalities and ideas that embrace ethics, morality and normative behavior. Right wing Republicans have emasculated the center of their party to curry favor with Trump, isolating or destroying the careers of those who dare oppose them. There is no room for Liz Cheney, Jeff Flake, Adam Kinzinger, or Mitt Romney to name a few. They have been replaced by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan and other Jacobins who continue to profit from the Trump turmoil.
The MAGA nightmare will end when Americans no longer tolerate the insanity and avarice perpetrated by Trump’s self-serving behavior. More importantly, it will end when right wing Republican leaders no longer profit from closing ranks around Trump and our neighbors’ conscience tells them that they can achieve their legitimate political goals without backing a person unfit for the presidency. Then and only then, will the moderates return to influence in the Republican party and the county be righted.
In the meantime, we are left with the antics of tinhorn GOP politicians dominating the news cycle ad nauseam. Ho hum, it’s difficult to keep prescribing the obvious antidote – dump Trump!