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September 28 - October 3, 2022
Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois.
The members’ votes were being influenced not by argument or political position, but in response to the threat of physical harm.
Stories like Meijer’s were common from many of the 139 House Republicans who voted against certification.
prepared to defend against my own party,” he said.
The one-way nature of Trump’s loyalty is so glaring it barely needs mentioning. He might be the single most perfect opposite of a “stand-up guy” ever to haunt our national character.
“They aren’t loyal, they have Stockholm syndrome,” the Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote about Republicans still hanging in.
Once you got past the oddity of a presidential inaugural held at the biggest crime scene in America—with the outgoing president as the main Person of Interest—this would be a fairly routine transfer of power.
“We’ve never had a situation where you have an inauguration two weeks after a terrorist attack and in the same location.”
In the aftermath of January 6, McCarthy was getting killed from all directions. People were, not unreasonably, calling him one of Trump’s chief enablers who was partly responsible for allowing things to reach that brutal point. He was being accused (accurately) of promoting Trump’s stolen election lies.
January 6 would result in a rehabilitation of the former president that would propel a narrative of denial, lies, and autocratic intolerance of dissent that has become the hallmark of the GOP.
But Stefanik was also a breathtaking opportunist, eager to move up in the ranks, and that would require adapting.
I mentioned that apparently many elected Republicans really seem to need the job, too. Otherwise, why would they put themselves through this?
Still, there’s something about the dirty devotion that Trump has fostered that transcends the psychology of power and belief systems. It goes well beyond the fear of losing a job and a parking space.
Not surprisingly, surveys of Republican voters continued to show higher regard for Putin than for Biden.
