The Republican Cowards in Congress

I guess I thought more people in government would put country before self. Silly me.

If American democracy falls, look no further than Congress to figure out why.

See, I was prepared for the onslaught of news… Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a renowned history professor specializing in fascism and authoritarianism, warned her readers ahead of time that this is a known tactic. Furthermore, Trump officials such as Stephen Miller and Russ Vought were publicly saying that executive orders were ready to go.

What I was not prepared for is the sheer number of Republican members of Congress who have seemingly decided their reelection prospects matter more than having a democracy at all; listen to some of these quotes given yesterday in response to the Trump administration’s order to halt nearly $3 trillion of appropriated government funds:

“I hope this sets a precedent to make sure that if we allocate taxpayer dollars that they are going to fund in an efficient and effective manner to what we’ve told the American people it’s going to fund,” said Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich.

“This is not unusual for an administration to pause funding and to take a hard look and scrub of how these programs are being spent and how they interact with a lot of executive orders that the president signed,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

“I fully support it,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson. “We want to make sure that the executive orders of the new president are being fully complied with regard to these programs.”

“I also think that a lot of these grants were predicated on divisive, discriminatory and illegal DEI, so we’ll find out more,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-MO.

Let me say this as clearly as I can: they’re full of shit.

Take a moment (you, reading this, right now), just take a moment to consider what would have happened if Biden had given the exact same order 4 years ago. Honestly, I think every journalist who points a microphone at the mouth of a politician needs to start asking questions this way:

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF THE OTHER PARTY HAD DONE THIS?

Seriously… if any of these 4 politicians had been asked yesterday, “would you support a democratic president doing the same thing?”, I guarantee you the answers wouldn’t have been nearly as amenable.

Here’s the reality: Elon Musk stated publicly that he will fund a primary opponent against any Republican member of Congress who goes against the policies of the president. One can certainly empathize that they’re effectively being blackmailed; that sucks, truly. I respect that their position is difficult.

I guess I thought more people in government would put country before self. Silly me.