The malice of some precedes charity toward all
WASHINGTON » I never liked the phrase “the new normal,” which became popular after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was a too-easy, high drama cliché, but worse than that, it implied that we would become accustomed to terrorism as a way of life. That was and always will be unacceptable.
And this is why this week’s impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump is so important, and why last week’s House vote to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, of her committee assignments — with, it should never be forgotten, 11 Republican votes — sent an invaluable message.
Although we can welcome President Biden’s desire to look forward rather than backward, our nation, and the Republican Party in particular, have not fully come to terms with what the violent attack on our Capitol and the effort to overturn the result of a free election mean for our democracy. Trumpism and its close cousins in Greene-ism, QAnonism, white supremacy and violent extremism cannot become “the new normal” in our politics.
Yet, we have “moved on” far too quickly. All 147 Republicans who, against all evidence, cast at least one vote to reject legitimate election returns should at some point be called upon to issue a formal recantation of the falsehoods on which their votes were based.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, treats advocates of “a bullet to the head” of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as another wing of the Republican Party. Yes, the GOP includes supply-siders, social conservatives, foreign policy hawks, and now would-be assassins who believe that Jewish lasers start forest fires. Talk about broadening the base!
McCarthy isn’t even a competent opportunist. He condemned QAnon last summer when it seemed politically convenient to do so, but turned around last week and said: “I don’t even know what it is.”
Memo to McCarthy: You have heard of Google, haven’t you? Everything you said before is readily available.
White extremism is, alas, nothing new. After Barack Obama’s election, an Associated Press story on Nov.
15, 2008 began: “Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting ‘Assassinate Obama.’ Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.” The incidents “are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.”
Trump exploited racist feelings against Obama before he ran for president. He made clear to the right-wing radicals after he won that they had a friend in the White House, and they became key to his survival strategy after he lost to Biden. He lied about the election — consistently, resolutely, systematically. He kept race in the forefront, regularly leveling his fraud charges against big Democratic cities in swing states where Black voters were a decisive force.
And then he moved to replace democracy with mobocracy, gathering a throng in Washington and inciting it to march to the Capitol and sack it. Five people died, including a Capitol police officer, and the crowd threatened other elected officials, including Trump’s own vice president.
This is the outrage that the House impeachment managers will describe in detail this week. The nation, and especially the Republican Party, must come to terms with it.
In particular, the managers will show video interviews of members of the rampaging horde making clear that they were doing what they were doing because Trump asked them to. And they will show that Trump himself welcomed the violence.
Thus one of the most telling passages in the House impeachment managers brief:
“In fact, when Congressional leaders begged President Trump to send help, or to urge his supporters to stand down, he instead renewed his attacks on the vice president and focused on lobbying senators to challenge the election results. Only hours after his mob first breached the Capitol did President Trump release a video statement calling for peace — and even then, he told the insurrectionists (who were at that very moment rampaging through the Capitol) ‘We love you’ and ‘You’re very special.’”
Very special indeed.
Enough Republican senators seem ready to hide behind the claim (easily contested though historical examples) that a president can’t be impeached when he’s out of office. So a conviction vote may fall short of the required two-thirds majority.
They should think again. We really cannot have the national “unity” everyone claims to yearn for unless the president’s own party acknowledges that these were high crimes and misdemeanors of a fundamental sort. They involved an attack on democracy itself through force and violence at the beckoning of a leader who sought to corrupt not only our political process but also our self-understanding as a nation of equals.
The impeachment managers will be insisting that this can never be our “new normal.” Here’s wishing them Godspeed in their work.
LAWRENCE, KAN. » Kansas dropped out of The Associated Press men’s college basketball poll for the first time in 12 years on Monday, ending the Jayhawks’ record streak of 231 consecutive weeks ranked in the Top 25.
Gonzaga and Baylor held down the top two spots, just as they have all season, with the Bulldogs getting 55 of 63 first-place votes and the Bears getting the other eight. Michigan took advantage of Villanova’s loss at St. John’s to jump into the top three, rival Ohio State climbed three spots to No. 4 and the Wildcats rounded out the top 5.
Illinois gave the Big Ten three teams in the top six after beating Indiana in overtime and pounding No. 21 Wisconsin over the weekend. The Illini were followed by Texas Tech, Houston, Virginia and Missouri, which beat Kentucky and No. 11 Alabama to reach the top 10 for the first time since Dec. 24, 2012.
The real drama came not at the top of the poll, though, but at the bottom of it.
When Kansas and UCLA fell out this week, it left the AP Top 25 without the Jayhawks, Bruins and fellow bluebloods Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina — with their combined 33 national championships — for the first time since Dec. 18, 1961. It also meant none of the 13 winningest Division I programs were ranked; No. 24 Purdue barely squeaked in.
The Jayhawks began their Top 25 streak on Feb. 2, 2009, when freshman guard Bryce Thompson was 6 years old. Their decade-plus of dominance, which began the season after winning the national championship, included 10 consecutive Big 12 regular-season titles, five conference tournament titles, two more Final Four trips and a runnerup finish in 2012.
Their game against No. 23 Oklahoma State on Monday night was to be the Jayhawks’ first unranked in 434 games.
“It’s basketball and we have another game to focus on,” Jayhawks guard Jalen Wilson said after a 91-79 loss at No. 14 West Virginia on Saturday, their sixth defeat in the last 10 games. “In basketball you sometimes have to focus on what’s in front of you and not think about the past and what you couldn’t done. Another day, another game we just have to focus on.”
The Jayhawks started 8-1 and climbed to No. 3 by Dec. 28, with their lone loss to Gonzaga and victories over thenranked teams Kentucky, West Virginia, Creighton and Texas Tech on the road. But they have scuffled since the start of Big 12 play, losing Thompson to an injury and failing to get enough production from an otherwise veteran team.