Where is ‘personal responsibility’?
What ever happened to the “personal responsibility” we’ve so often heard Republicans prattle on about?
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Ted Cruz (Tex.) and others aided and abetted our authoritarian president, amplifying his lies about voter fraud. White House officials and their confederates in right-wing media have thoroughly brain-poisoned the GOP base, claiming that shadowy forces stole the 2020 election. In so doing, these quislings all helped foment the insurrectionist storming of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
They should man up and own it.
And yet for their role in Wednesday’s seditious acts, not a whit of personal responsibility is anywhere to be found. “It is not your fault. It is their fault” came the appalling apologia of Fox News host Tucker Carlson, with the ambiguous “their” seemingly referring to Democrats. Cruz more explicitly blamed random Democrats. Other right-wing personalities and Republican leaders claim the attempted coup was really the work of far-left antifa, even though Capitol rioters were on camera chanting “Trump” and “Stop the Steal” and carrying the Confederate flag.
Nearly half (45%) of Republican survey respondents said they approve of the storming of the Capitol, a YouGov snap poll found. Yet this same poll found that most Republicans also blame President-elect Joe Biden for this (totally acceptable and good!) American carnage. Let’s review the tape. Donald Trump warned his fellow partisans that he would try to hold onto the presidency by force if necessary. In the months before Election Day, he repeatedly declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, instead pledging “there won’t be a transfer.”
With rare exceptions -- such as Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) -- Republicans asked about these comments usually refused to directly condemn them.
Some, such as former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Sen. Ben Sasse, RNeb., shrugged off such openly banana-republican remarks, insisting that although Trump “says crazy stuff,” the president would of course concede gracefully if he lost. Sometimes allies, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pivoted to talking about judges.
When it became clear that Trump had indeed lost and refused to concede (gracefully or otherwise), these same Republicans indulged his delusions.
“What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change,” one unnamed Republican official told The Washington Post in November. “He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20.”
Things soon devolved. As it became clearer that the base had bought into Trump’s conspiracy theories, and believed the election had been “stolen,” Republicans transitioned from merely ignoring this mass paranoia to fanning the flames.
Republican officials claimed they were merely asking questions about the election system’s integrity.
There’s so much distrust that they had to investigate now! Never mind that Trump and other GOP cranks had sown the distrust themselves. No matter that dozens of court cases about these “questions” had been thrown out -- including by Trump-appointed judges.
Suddenly GOP lawmakers were tripping over one another to propose faux-populist “fixes” to the nonproblem of their leader’s creation. They announced plans to object to election results in states Biden had won. Some even explicitly advocated use of force, with Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tex., saying after an unfavorable court ruling that “violence in the streets” might.be the only option left to prevent Biden’s inauguration.
Not all of their followers understood these cosplay coup attempts to be purely performative.
Then on Wednesday, politicians cheered on the bloodthirsty Washington D.C. crowds who might someday donate to their 2024 campaigns. Trump was already fundraising oodles off his “Stop the Steal” grift; why shouldn’t they, as well? Indeed, just as insurrectionists were storming the Capitol, both Cruz and Hawley campaigns sent out fundraising texts.
These arrogant demagogues thought they were merely playing to the mob, as they’ve been doing for the past four years. It apparently never occurred to them that the mob might someday come for them too.
Some are born responsible, some achieve responsibility, and some have responsibility thrust upon them.
If Republicans will not voluntarily accept accountability, then the ballot box must force it upon them. Name, shame and eject all these traitors from office.