On January 6, a mob of insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol at the behest of the former president, Donald Trump. “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol,” Trump had told the insurrectionists — armed with pro-Trump banners, confederate flags, assault rifles, and a makeshift gallows — before urging them to “fight.” And they did. The violent insurrectionists beat police officers, destroyed government property, and forced lawmakers and aides to shelter under desks and in closets out of fear for their lives. They chanted their desire to “hang [former Republican Vice President] Mike Pence” and rallied around the same lies that the former president had been spewing for months, that the “most secure” election in U.S. history was stolen and that Trump was the rightful winner.
The riot led to the deaths of five people, including one Capitol police officer. Two other officers committed suicide after the events of that day. In the aftermath of January 6th, Trump became the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice: once for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and once for inciting an insurrection against the U.S. government. And yet, the impeachment hearing which culminated in Trump’s acquittal was just the latest in a string of incidents proving that, for Republicans, there is no limit to partisan loyalty.
Even after witnessing first-hand what Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called “the most despicable act any president has ever committed,” the vast majority of Republican lawmakers chose to side not with democracy, but with the former president who spent his last months in office dead-set on destroying it. Only ten Republican representatives voted to impeach Trump, and when it came time for the Senate to convict him on Feb. 13, just seven Republican senators sided with the 50 Democrats in declaring Trump guilty, ten short of the supermajority needed to convict and bar the president from ever running for public office again.
To be sure, Republicans were quick to play scapegoat. Many indeed condemned the physical presence of the insurrectionists at the Capitol. Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, for example, tweeted,“The right to protest peacefully is protected under the Constitution but the actions by violent mobs against our law enforcement and property at the @USCapitol building today are not,” before calling on Trump to “condemn this unacceptable vandalism and violence.”
But when it came to disavowing the singular person whose inflammatory rhetoric and disinformation was responsible for setting the insurrectionists loose on democracy in the first place, most Republicans were silent. Indeed, Senator Portman, like many Republicans who criticized the riot, still vindicated and voted to acquit Trump. The few who did call out the former president for his role in the attack did little to turn their words into action.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for example, garnered some praise for his cutting rebuke of the doubly impeached president. “Former President Trump’s actions that preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty,” he said on Feb. 13 to a Senate chamber filled with colleagues who, like him, had feared for their lives only a couple of weeks before.
But the Senator only spewed such a scalding reproach, calling the former president “practically and morally responsible” for the insurrection, after having voted to acquit the very target of his speech. McConnell’s words were just that: words. Like the 43 other Republicans who voted in favor of acquittal, McConnell did nothing to repair the damage on the institutions he accused Trump of trying to “torch.” Instead, blind loyalty to Trump’s Republican party created an environment in which not even a president who set his supporters loose on the government itself could be deemed unfit for governing.
The Republican Party has become increasingly polarized and far-right in recent years, and the Trump presidency is only the most obvious symptom. As their favor with the American people has steadily dropped — Trump lost the popular vote twice, and the 57 senators who voted to convict represent 76.7 million more Americans than the 43 Republicans who voted to acquit — the party’s impulse towards unpopular power grabs have become increasingly common. Think back to the recent moves to unconstitutionally remove undocumented immigrants from the Census count in order to reduce the political power of predominantly Democratic cities, for example, or the rushed Suprme Court confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett just weeks after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In doing so, Republicans have managed to secure federal authority despite representing less and less of the country.
As they’ve done with the pressing issues of the climate crisis and systemic racism, Republicans chose to stick their heads in the sand, even and especially when the facts become increasingly obvious. Notably, many did so after months of forwarding the same lies as the president himself, the very falsehoods that found their echo in the Capitol chambers on Jan. 6. Even the most visceral threat to U.S. democracy to date was not enough to sever the Republican party’s ties to the cult of Trumpism and the disinformation that necessarily fuels it. Just look back at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC, conference this past year, where the former president’s vitriol towards Senator McConnell — who did not receive an invitation to the event despite being one of the most prominent Republicans in office — was met with support from the largely maskless crowd. It’s clear that even post-Trump, the former president’s grip on the “Grand Old Party” remains comfortably intact.
The Republican Party continues to be flimsy and hypocritical — two traits which prime its leaders and supporters for what appears will continue as an ongoing attack on the very pillars of American democracy: from the government, to the press, to truth itself. And if inciting a violent insurrection threatening both the life of the former Republican Vice President and of hundreds of lawmakers is not enough for Republicans to decide to convict one of their own for the sake of democracy, then what is?
Image Credit: “Overall” by Tyler Merbler is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
