Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Republicans In Disarray -- The MAGA Purge


The loons are on the march:

The defiant far-right acolytes of former president Donald Trump in the House Republican caucus have embarked on a targeted campaign ahead of the midterm elections to expand their ranks — and extend their power — on Capitol Hill.

The effort, backed by Trump and guided by House members such as Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), is part of a broader push by followers of the “Make America Great Again” movement to purge the GOP of those not deemed loyal to the former president and his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Joe Biden.

Former Army Green Beret Joe Kent is running for a U.S. House seat in Washington state held by another Republican, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who voted to impeach Trump over his role in the events of Jan. 6 at the Capitol.

Kent said he has little interest in fighting with Democrats if he makes it to Congress. Instead, he wants to force Republicans into tough votes, starting with articles of impeachment against President Biden and a full congressional inquiry into the 2020 presidential election, which he says was stolen from Trump.

“A lot of it will be shaming Republicans,” Kent said. “I need to be going after the people in the Republican Party who want to go back to go-along-to-get-along. It’s put up or shut up.”

The effort is to create Congressional "MAGA strongholds" by ousting any Republican insufficiently obeisant to the cult leader, the Malignant Loser.  The purity of the coup caucus is paramount to the long- term goals of these Big Lie crackpots:  to reinstall the leader of their movement, the Malignant Loser, to power and turn the tables on Democrats.  

This particular loon, Kent, it's noted, was a former Green Beret, whose training apparently didn't include basic lessons in civics and the Constitution.  In fact, the MAGA purgers seem to be from central fascist casting -- former military and jocks, and quite white, of course -- so not only are they loons, but they're good lookin' loons!

The emerging candidates — some former collegiate athletes and military veterans, telegenic and mostly White male millennials — have benefited from publicity from [seditionist Steve] Bannon and the fundraising prowess and endorsements of the alliance of Republican House members who have cast themselves in Trump’s image, including Greene, Cawthorn, Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.).

As Kent puts it, they'll be a pain in the ass for other Republicans before they turn their guns (literally?) on Democrats:

“I think for the first two years our job is to be the resistance. We’re going to be fighting the Republican Party a lot,” he said. “I think for your average Republican voter, what comes out of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s mouth is what they want to hear. That’s what Trump did; he brought the average American into the room.”

The bathroom?  The massage room?  The mud room? 

The entire article is worth the read to get the sense of the radicalism of this crop of potential candidates.

It should go without saying that there's no more important mission in our country right now that to defeat these un- American, anti- democracy fascists at every opportunity.  If Republican in- fighting helps achieve that, we're all for it.  But we also have to be on our game, be proactive and work like hell.