A taste of their own linguistic medicine
Well, the Red Tie Brigade has come and gone. They came to Donald Trump’s election interference trial to make their point, so they made their point. Their point was they are whores who will not only do and say anything to appease their cult-god Donald Trump, they will even dress up like him. At least they didn’t wear orange makeup and dye their hair yellow.
They were also there to do what Trump was legally constrained from doing. They were there to stochastically terrorise the witnesses and officers of the court involved in Trump’s current criminal trial. Trump was threatened with jail if he did it. So he had them do it. Trump even edited their scripts while sitting in court. He told them what to say and they said it. And they got away with it.
So far, anyway. I daydream about secret grand juries being convened, and sealed indictments for conspiracy to commit contempt of court being handed down. The menagerie of Republican whores who came to New York to do what Donald Trump can’t should be criminally indicted for this abominably criminal breach of ethical conduct.
Among the parade of puppets was Virginia Republican representative Bob Good whose slanderous lies were particularly egregious. “This is a judge who seems to get all the high profile conservative trials up there,” Good lied in a Fox Business interview. “And his own daughter is making — raising … tens of millions of dollars for the Democrat party, off this very trial.”
While it’s true that Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter has served as an executive at a progressive political consulting firm that has worked for Democrats in the past, there is no evidence that she’s raising “tens of millions of dollars” from Trump’s trial. How is that possible anyway? By selling Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen action figures?
In a crowning irony, you can bet green money that every one of those political whores will go home and try to raise money from their political stunt. They will email photos of themselves aping for the camera as proof to their MAGA constituents that they are in lockstep with their cult-god, then they will ask for money in recompense for their shameless whoredom.
But I want to take a side trip here and talk about Bob Good’s use of the term “Democrat Party.” You’ve probably heard that term many times from many slithering MAGA politicians. What is that all about? Isn’t it “Democratic Party?” Yes it is, and there’s a reason why they say it the way they do.
“Democrat Party” is indeed a deliberate pejorative for the “Democratic Party.” The foreshortening is intended to rankle and provoke Democrats. I can think of one other similar abuse of English usage, and pardon me for mentioning it, because it’s much worse. The word “Jew” is frequently used as an epithet for “Jewish” by bigots. It is with a similar spirit and passive-aggressive malice that Republicans say “Democrat Party.” You may have noticed it’s a favourite with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example.
Jamie Raskin has a suggestion for this dog whistle put down. Any time you hear a MAGA Republican talk about the “Democrat Party,” you are free to refer to them in turn as “banana Republicans.” Let it serve as a reminder to them that we know what they are up to, that their mutilation of a word is symbolic of their plan to mutilate American democracy. While sending them to prison it’s also fitting that Republicans get a taste of their own linguistic medicine. 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.