Today in GOP news

Subverting democracy, accepting abusers, and tolerating racists.

Republicans are about to steal another Congressional seat in North Carolina. They aren’t even pretending to respect democracy anymore. North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall claimed Trump won a mandate and that Republicans in the NCGA are going to “defend it by drawing an additional Republican Congressional seat.”

At another time in American history, say fifteen years ago, that would be a remarkable statement. The speaker of the house of the ninth largest state in the nation says the voters don’t matter. The separation of powers is no longer relevant. Federalism is dying as the state legislature sees itself as subservient to the President of the United States. In other words, they’ve traded the aspirations of the American experiment for the ruthless cynicism of authoritarianism.

Hall’s statement is also just wrong. Trump didn’t win a mandate. He barely won the election and didn’t even win a majority of the popular vote. He won North Carolina by a little over three percent. There’s no consensus around Trump, much less a mandate.

Hall implies that Trump controls Congress. That may be true today, but it’s only because of the cowardice of the Republican leaders in Congress who have ceded their Constitutional authority to Trump. The legislative branch used to see itself as a check on executive power, not enabling it.

Destin Hall has turned out to be a disappointment. I had hoped that he would eschew the worst instincts of the modern GOP. Instead, he’s turned out to be just another go-along-get-along lackey, more interested in protecting his power than protecting American values. He’s another one who knows what’s right and does what’s wrong.

In other GOP news, Florida Congressman Cory Mills now has a restraining order against him. Mills, who is married, sent his girlfriend communications that were “intended to cause … substantial emotional distress.” The court documents reveal that he had another girlfriend in Washington, DC.

What’s notable is that nobody is calling for Cory Mills to step down. If they did, the House would have one less vote to keep the Epstein files from seeing the light of day. Republicans today are no longer held accountable for their actions. Being a run-of-the-mill scumbag is apparently within the parameters of normal in the GOP today and no cause for concern.

Also in GOP news, leaders of Young Republican organization have been on a group chat exposing their racism and antisemitism. One of them is even a state senator in Vermont. According to Politico, “They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.”

Republicans can feign outrage, but these people aren’t operating in a vacuum. They’re part of a culture within the GOP that’s been tolerated and ignored at best and fostered and encouraged at worst. As I have long said, not every Republican is a bigot, but every Republican knows racists, homophobes, and antisemites are a key part of their coalition. And if they don’t know it, it’s willful ignorance.

The GOP news today is illuminating. The speaker of the house admits that he can deliver a Congressional district for Republicans without the hassle of elections. The entire party looks the other way as a married Member of Congress threatens one of his two girlfriends. And the leaders of an official GOP organ spew racist hatred across a chat group. They are reflection of the values instilled in the Republican Party of Donald Trump.