Insurrection marks GOP moment of reckoning
The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was stunning and predictable, the result of a Republican Party that has repeatedly enabled President Donald Trump’s destructive behavior.
When Trump was a presidential candidate in 2016, Republican officials ignored his call to supporters to “knock the crap out” of protesters. Less than a year after he took office, GOP leaders argued he was taken out of context when he said there were “very fine people” on both sides of a deadly white supremacist rally.
Last summer, most party leaders looked the other way when Trump had hundreds of peaceful protesters forcibly removed from a demonstration near the White House so he could pose with a Bible in front of a church.
But the violent siege on Capitol Hill offers a new, and perhaps final, moment of reckoning for the GOP. The party, which has been defined over the past four years by its loyalty to Trump, began recalibrating in the aftermath of Wednesday’s chaos.
One of Trump’s closest allies, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said “enough is enough.”
Republican former President George W. Bush described the violent mob as “a sickening and heartbreaking sight.” He declined to call out Trump or his allies, but the implication was clear when Bush said the siege “was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes.”
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a top House Republican and the daughter of Bush’s vice president, was much more direct in an interview on Fox News.
“There’s no question the president formed the mob. The president incited the mob,” Cheney said.
Bush and Cheney were already among a smaller group of Republican officials willing to condemn Trump’s most outrageous behavior at times. The overwhelming majority of the GOP has been far more reserved, eager to keep Trump’s fiery base on their side.