Americans on both sides of the aisle are beginning to see the new far-right GOP for what it is
Americans are beginning to see the new, emerging version of the GOP as totalitarian, amoral, unethical, white supremacist and, in some respects, proto-fascist.
All of the unconscionable acts by the GOP are beginning to add up. Americans on both sides of the fence are beginning to see the new, emerging version of the GOP as totalitarian, amoral, unethical, white supremacist and, in some respects, proto-fascist. I could add even more adjectives, but it would be burdensome to read
The new GOP no longer shares anything in common with the Republican party of Dwight Eisenhower, nor with the GOP under Ronald Reagan, nor even the party under either presidents Bush.
In the case of the cited debacle around Hunter Biden, Republicans have yet to produce any evidence of actual wrongdoing by Hunter Biden. So, instead, they appear allowed Marjorie Taylor Greene to wave large-format (poster-sized) nude photos of Hunter Biden around during a House Oversight Committee hearing on his taxes.
Had this happened under Eisenhower's watch, the punishment of MTG for engaging in such egregious antics would likely have been decisive and harsh and would already have been a thing of history today. She would have been immediately reprimanded, and likely censured and removed from her committee assignments in the House -- and it would have been done post-haste. But, alas, the conservative Republican party of the past is now long, long gone -- a historical remnant. And what remains is a vile, amoral and ethicless testiment to what can happen when extremists are allowed to take control.
House Republicans have for months accused the Bidens of corruption and other forms of wrongdoing. But they have failed to produce any actual evidence. More recently, they have put their magnifying glass on Hunter Biden’s tax charges plea deal, which will allow him to avoid jail time. And during the House hearing, Republicans and their “whistleblower” witnesses failed to show any meaningful evidence supporting their corruption claims.
And recently, it appears that Greene chose to email the nude images of Hunter Biden to minors. On July 19th, the Georgia representative emailed all of her constituents, claiming she had confirmed Biden was guilty of sex trafficking and tax fraud (she had not). The email included a video that showed his nudes. Because there is no age screening for anyone wishing to sign up for Rep. Greene’s email newsletter, any minors are allowed to subscribe. And this is something that happens frequently among school children who want to do research for a social studies project or simply as a means of staying up-to-date — those kids have now received nudes from their congresswoman.
The GOP is actively engaging in attempts to fire teachers for teaching sex education while a GOP representative is allowed to show porn on the House floor.
This kind of rabid, visceral discourse is not what Americans should expect from their elected leaders. The fact that all of this wildly inappropriate behavior happened without even a hint of correction or reprimand by Oversight Chair James Comer is a clear indication of the fundamental changes that have occurred in the new GOP.
Intellectual historian Robert Westbrook, the Joseph F. Cunningham Emeritus professor of history at the University of Rochester, contends that the cultural right is pursuing its own version of “Gleichschaltung—the Nazi program for coordination, which meant at every level, society would be nazified. Its adoption depends on who the enemy is, and a lot of other variables that lended its particular color…. But there’s a heightened sense on the American right that culture is the fulcrum of society and politics—that you have to intensify the culture wars.”
He may be right. And it's scary that a new society of Mussolini and Hitler want-to-be's are standing on our doorsteps.
Indeed, the Republican Party has become so factionalized that it is at the precipice of becoming non-functional. In the words of J. Michael Luttig, a conservative retired federal judge and key adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence “there is no Republican Party”. Former VP Mike Pence relied on Luttig’s guidance before deciding to defy Trump and the MAGA Republican contingent, by certifying the results of the presidential election on January 6, 2021. He has stated that former President Donald Trump is even more dangerous than he was in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Luttig is not a marginalized Republican without a voice to be reckoned with in the party. He has solid conservative credentials and longstanding ties to the Supreme Court where he became well known for producing top-notch clerks for the Supreme Court Justices. He was also a former judge on the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals and was a key witness at the January 6 committee hearings in 2022.
https://newrepublic.com/post/174455/republicans-little-hunter-biden-evidence-shared-nudes-instead
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/republican-totalitarianism/
https://newrepublic.com/article/171722/republican-party-dead
https://newrepublic.com/post/174466/marjorie-taylor-greene-may-sent-hunter-biden-nudes-bunch-minors