A question of guardrails
It’s instructive that what brought Donald Trump down wasn’t his treasons or murders or rapes or larcenies but his inability to win elections. Trump was cut loose by the Republican cognoscenti the minute he ceased to be of use to them. You don’t keep the wrapper after eating the candy bar.
Beyond the “whatever works” ethic that brought Al Capone to heel by way of a federal tax evasion conviction, there’s an important lesson in all this, a lesson that teaches us something fundamental about the Republican Party character. Simply put, they haven’t got one. Republicans have no guardrails.
You don’t have to go any further than Herschel Walker to prove this. Walker is evidently profoundly brain damaged and incapable of adult self-appraisal. He is an infant disguised as a grownup, with infantile impulses and a toddler’s vocabulary just beyond the goo-goo da-da stage.
Walker is being managed by the Machiavellian Republican machine. He is being harvested like a potato strictly for his vote. No one expects him to author legislation. No one expects him to spearhead a fact-finding junket. No one expects him to pen a coherent memoIr. Walker is nothing but a political whore. He’s there for his Nay and for his Yay and to be told by the Republican whoremaster and minority leader which is which come voting time. Period.
It’s an ongoing trope among Republicans that we are “radicals.” Notice that they are careful not to be too explicit about what makes us radicals. They understand that if they spell it out it will make us look good and make them look bad, because we are on the side of the people and we are on the side of good government and we are on the side of democracy.
True, like Republicans we’re in it for the vote too, but we also send principled and qualified people to Washington to register that vote. In other words, we have guardrails and they do not. We steadfastly refuse to send boneheaded dybbuks like Walker to Washington because when and if we gain power we intend to do some good with that power. We intend to have something to vote about apart from power grabs and money for the one percent. We intend to sponsor good legislation and just laws because we are good and just.
As I said at the beginning, Donald Trump’s gotterdammerung has revealed that the Republican Party has no guardrails. They’ve demonstrated that they will settle for anything or anyone just as long as he or she represents another Republican vote. For Republicans, utility and not morality is the all-important ingredient in any candidate. They’re in it for the vote. Tuesday, Georgia has a chance to deny them that vote.
So if you live in Georgia, make sure you vote. If you don’t live in Georgia, volunteer or give what money you can to Raphael Warnock’s campaign. Let’s deny Republicans their zombie Senator and show the world what integrity looks like, what good government looks like, what a real, mature, qualified, rational Senator can continue to do for the people of Georgia. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.