Republicans are imploding
For the last day or so, Republicans have been tearing President Biden’s inaugural address apart for the wrong reasons. They’re calling him hypocritical for talking about unity because his speech did things like denounce violence and white supremacy, things that they should probably stop encouraging among their supporters if they really care about domestic terrorism as a national security threat. Although a number of longtime Republicans currently in retirement, like Karl Rove have spoken out, the party’s current leadership, freshly abandoned by Donald Trump, isn’t quite sure what to say.
Kevin McCarthy is trying to take the safest way out he possibly can, by trying to spin the GOP as the real victims in all of this, and it’s likely because he’s afraid of voters and right-wing pundits suddenly turning against him, like Lou Dobbs is turning on Mitch McConnell right now, accusing the former senate majority leader of betraying Trump by implying that he might convict in the Senate. It’s safe to say that at least part of the appeal Donald Trump had for Republicans back in 2016 was his popularity with right-wing media outlets like Fox and Breitbart, who they could always rely on for positive spin of even some of their most draconian policies.
Now, there’s at least two other networks vying for the shrinking Fox News audience and Fox pundits are openly bashing Republicans on TV for not being loyal enough to Donald Trump – Dobbs sounding more like he’s in a cult than ever before. At the rate things are falling apart, Senate Republicans may find themselves in a lose-lose situation by the time the impeachment trial happens, when it may no longer affect how they vote.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making