FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump celebrates with Congressional Republicans after the U.S. Congress passed sweeping tax overhaul legislation, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., December 20, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
Last updated on October 3rd, 2018 at 08:22 pm
The last couple of weeks should have been a cakewalk for Republicans.
In the midst of an election year when female voters are fleeing the party, the GOP was given a chance to stand up for women when multiple victims came forward with credible allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The first pair of claims from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez was just the beginning.
Early Wednesday, a third woman released a sworn affidavit claiming Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge attempted to drug girls at parties so they could take turns raping them. Just a short time ago, another report indicated that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a fourth woman in 1998 after getting drunk.
In one voice, the GOP should be saying, “No. The reputation of the nation’s highest court is too important.”
More importantly, they should have expressed sympathy for these victims, all women who came forward to share their stories at enormous personal cost. A full and fair FBI investigation is a no-brainer.
Instead, Republicans have waged a despicable war on the survivors and doubled down on fast-tracking Kavanaugh‘s nomination. They blamed the judge’s troubling past conduct on Democrats and questioned the mental state of the women, calling them nutty, saying they must be mistaken or that they’re simply lying.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump tried to distract from this dumpster fire by attacking Michael Avenatti, who is representing the third Kavanaugh accuser, Julie Swetnick.
At a trainwreck press conference later in the day, Trump blamed Democrats for Kavanaugh‘s woes, calling them con artists, whining about the timing and again casting doubt on the female accusers.
“What they’ve done to his family, what they’ve done to his children, they know it’s a big fat con job,” the president said.
Trump is not alone. Throughout this charade, the rest of the party has followed his lead by either brushing these allegations under the rug or waging an outright assault on the credibility of the victims.
Wednesday was a perfect example of that as Republican senators, from Lindsey Graham to Orrin Hatch to Bill Cassidy, were out in full force to smear the women.
And as of this writing, the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold a vote on Friday morning to move Kavanaugh‘s nomination forward, signaling that they don’t give a damn what happens in Thursday’s scheduled hearing with Dr. Ford, even if the American people do.
What the Brett Kavanaugh chaos has demonstrated more clearly than ever is that there is no longer any separation between Trump and the rest of the Republican Party. The same moral bankruptcy Trump has displayed his entire life is now a core element of the modern GOP.
They haven’t just allowed Trump to say and do whatever he wants since taking office. They have emulated him. They have adopted his sleazeball political playbook. They have become him.
The Kavanaugh fiasco is just the latest sign that the GOP thinks enough voters no longer care if their leaders lack character, especially as long as they overturn abortion rights or cut taxes for the wealthy or attack immigrants.
In less than two months, the American people are likely to prove them wrong.
There are some moderate GOP voters out there who are hoping their party returns to its roots and remembers the example of Lincoln, Eisenhower or even Reagan. But the Kavanaugh confirmation circus has shown us that these hopes are misplaced.
The GOP is gone. There are no “responsible” Republicans anymore. There is no moral wing of the party preparing to stand up for what’s right. Trump is the GOP and the GOP is Trump.
Any candidate on any ballot in any state who aligns themselves with this monstrosity of a political party as they elevate men like Donald Trump, Roy Moore and Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t deserve your vote. They deserve to be shamed from public office just as they are shaming survivors of sexual crimes in a transparently disgusting attempt to stack the U.S. Supreme Court in their favor.
If discouraged Republicans want to save their party, they must first destroy what it’s become in the Trump era.
That starts by throwing every last one of them out of office in November.
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