Republicans on parade
MAGA is out in force in North Carolina and New York.
Republicans were on parade yesterday. In North Carolina, GOP runoff elections nominated Hal Weatherman for lieutenant governor, Brad Knott for Congress, and Dave Boliek for state auditor. In Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia, Nikki Haley voters continued to dog Donald Trump despite having dropped out of the race in March. And in New York city, Trump’s VP wannabes showed up at the courthouse to prove their loyalty to the beleaguered conman.
MAGA extremists got their man in Weatherman. He won handily against Forsyth District Attorney Jim O’Neill, garnering 74% of the vote. O’Neill came within 15,000 votes of beating incumbent Attorney General Josh Stein in 2020. A rational party would have seen O’Neill as a strong candidate. MAGA punished him for not being extreme enough.
Knott won his primary after Kelly Daughtry dropped out. Trump endorsed Knott and Daughtry, who is daughter of former GOP House Majority Leader Leo Daughtry, said she could see no path to victory. That tells you all you need to know about today’s GOP. It’s now the party of Trump, not the Party of Lincoln.
The race for auditor was closer. Dave Boliek beat Jack Clark by about 8,000 votes. Clark is CPA who worked in the state legislature. Boliek is a former prosecutor who is Chair of the UNC Board of Trustees. Boliek is former Democrat who changed parties to run for auditor.
In Nebraska, Nikki Haley received almost 18% of the vote against Trump. In Maryland, she got 20%. Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake pointed out that both those states have closed primaries, meaning only Republicans can vote in them. Even among the most loyal Republicans, Trump is struggling to consolidate his base.
In New York, Republicans put on show. A host of vice-presidential hopefuls showed up, all dressed like Trump, to denounce the trial and show support for Dear Leader. It would be embarrassing to anyone with any humility or self-respect. The GOP is little more than a cult of personality.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also made an appearance and condemned the hearings as “corrupt.” Republicans are doing all they can to discredit our government. They’ve attacked our electoral system, our schools, and now our justice system. They don’t want Trump to be held accountable and want to set the stage for a second Trump term that upends the institutions that protect our democracy. It’s both scary and disgraceful.
For Democrats, Johnson’s appearance and attack on the justice system should be a call to arms. They need to step up now. The election is too important. The GOP is not likely to accept the results unless Trump wins. Democrats need to brace themselves for an assault that makes January 6 look quaint. The guardrails are coming down.
Thomas—how does one “brace themselves” for an assault that makes Jan6 look tame?
Lately, Johnson is frequently pointed out as a contradiction in the born-again Christianity world. He portrays himself as a committed Southern Baptist, using his faith as both an offensive and defensive tool. His duplicity is revealed when he attends the trial of a man who has been labeled by judge in a Civil matter a rapist and slander. This man operates a business, specifically “Trump University,” and phony charities which the courts and state regulatory agencies have determined were designed to swindle people, and he was ordered to compensate the victims. This man has committed adultery, a sin that, according to the Old Testament, is punishable by death by stoning, not just once, but on multiple occasions. Moreover, he confessed that he disregarded his wife’s feelings when he paid for the silence of several young woman with whom he had an inappropriate relationships, one of which made her living as an adult film actor. Furthermore, expressed his belief that men would look up to him. As a man myself, I find it challenging to respect a man like Trump. I am certain that any man with a hint of moral integrity would arrive at the same conclusion. Johnson is no better than Trump, as he is ready to forsake any semblance of moral values to further his political ambitions. Both are representative of what the GOP has devolved into: a party of moral reprobates, determined to obliterate any trace of religious values in their daily conduct and replace them with what some have described as a band of unprincipled, immoral, depraved, corrupt reprobates who are prepared to serve the darker forces. It wouldn’t be shocking to hear Trump suggest that there were praiseworthy individuals on both sides of the Holocaust. This is the man the GOP wants to be the president of a country with a history of over 270 years of striving for a more robust democracy. A man who believes a group of hooligans should not be held accountable for assaulting and killing police officers and vandalizing our nation’s capital by etching vulgar words into the 200-year-old marble, defiling the hallways, and vandalizing historic art. Johnson’s conduct provides a compelling case for atheism. As for those other sycophants, such behavior is part of their standard approach to moral values. Not something worth discussing.