EDITOR'S NOTE: Forward Kentucky, "the progressive voice for Kentucky politics" is published in Louisville by Bruce Maples. "The Daily Take" is a subscribers-only feature. But he kindly gave us permission to post today's Take which further illustrates the tragic decline of the party of "Lincoln and Liberty" into the party of hate, bigotry and grievance politics under Donald Trump. To subscribe to FK, click here.
See also from the Washington Post: GOP lawmakers largely silent after Trump suggests ‘termination’ of Constitution
By BRUCE MAPLES
Forward Kentucky Publisher
So here’s a question for you: Raise your hand if you are tired of talking about Donald Trump. Yes, yes – I see those hands. Me too. Absolutely sick of both the man and stories about him.
But, sometimes “attention must be paid,” as the saying goes. And this is one of those times.
Over the weekend, Matt Taibbi posted a story about Twitter employees discussing how to handle tweets about Hunter Biden, especially ones that were obviously either unproven or untrue. Not anything particularly noteworthy about this; any responsible social media platform has internal discussions like these all the time. The difference here, of course, is that Hunter Biden and his laptop are part of the Trump fantasy of a stolen election.
Trump responded by saying on Truth Social, his own bought-and-paid-for social media platform, that this was a “a massive fraud” so serious that it “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
There it is: the wish of the authoritarian – to do away with the rule of law, and even the Constitution itself.
That statement, and the goal behind it, is bad enough. But what is worse is the response — or rather, the lack thereof — of Republican leadership.
Did Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy rebuke Trump’s statement? No. Did our own Jamie Comer, who is itching to start his investigation of Hunter Biden, say that Trump’s attack on the Constitution was a bridge too far? Of course not. Did ANY leading Repub speak out against this? Not that I can find.
And what I want to point out is that this is a long-standing pattern of the GOP. If the question is Trump versus the Constitution, Trump wins. Always.
Examples abound. Back in our days of innocence (2016), Trump was obviously breaking the emoluments clause of the Constitution – using his public office for private profit. The GOP did nothing. Trump put the security of the nation at risk, multiple times. The GOP did nothing. Trump took part in a seditious conspiracy. The GOP did nothing.
Every one of the Republican elected officials in Congress took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Almost all of them have broken this oath, and continue to break it.
Their loyalty is not to Trump; it is obvious that almost all of them want him to just go away. Rather, their loyalty is to their own power and position; they care more about being reelected than they do about supporting and defending the Constitution.
Let us watch this week to see if any of Kentucky’s elected Republicans condemn this statement by Trump. If you see it happen somewhere, point it out to me and I will thank them publicly for it. But I am not holding my breath; none of them have the courage to support the Constitution over their own interests.
“Subversion through silence” – that’s the GOP way when it comes to Trump versus the Constitution.