6 NEWS Controversy of the week
The GOP: Is there life after Trumpism?
Donald Trump once bragged that if he shot somebody on
Fifth Avenue “I wouldn’t lose voters,” said Peter Wehner
in The New York Times. His acquittal last week by
Republicans in his Senate impeachment trial shows how
right his prophecy was. Five people died when Trump
loyalists stormed the Capitol in hope of reversing his
election defeat, yet the GOP remains a Trump party.
Still, there are some “embers in the ashes” that may
signal “the timid start of a new, post-Trump” era.
Seven GOP senators found the backbone to deem
Trump guilty of inciting the Jan. 6 riot with reck-
less rhetoric. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
voted to acquit Trump on the technicality that he’d
already left office, but delivered a blistering speech
denouncing Trump’s “wild falsehoods” about a stolen election
and his “unconscionable” behavior. Clearly sick of Trump and
MAGA extremists, McConnell pledged to support only “electable”
Republican candidates in the future. Trump reacted by declar-
ing war, said Mike Debonis in The Washington Post. The former
president dismissed McConnell as a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling
political hack” and vowed to back pro-Trump Republicans in the
2022 midterms. He also told his followers that his “movement to
Make America Great Again has only just begun.”
In the coming power struggle, the GOP establishment doesn’t
stand a chance, said Jonathan Bernstein in Bloomberg.com. The
vast majority of elected Republicans seem happy “to let the party
become more and more Trumpy.” That includes “playing footsie
with white supremacist and other violent groups,” embracing
authoritarianism, and being willing to keep power through threats
and violence. Republican voters share these views, said Tara
Palmeri in Politico.com. In a poll this week, 59 percent of GOP
voters say they want Trump to “play a major role in their party
going forward”—a number that’s risen 18 points since shortly
after the Capitol riot. Whether establishment Republicans like it
or not, the GOP rank and file just “can’t quit Trump.”Trump faces so many potential criminal prosecutions
he will probably never run again, said Gary Abernathy
in The Washington Post. But “while Trump will
be gone,” all signs indicate that “Trumpism is the
GOP’s future.” Trump acolytes fill Congress and the
30-plus state legislatures controlled by Republicans.
“What is Trumpism without Trump?” It’s strident
advocacy for individual freedom, deregulation,
secure borders, an “America First” foreign policy,
and an “unapologetic embrace of ‘God and
Country’ values.” Trump’s popularity was rooted in “patriotic
indignation,” said Charles Kesler in the New York Post. That spirit
will define the GOP for years to come, “even without Trump’s
continuing political presence.”Trumpism’s real spirit is anti-democratic rage, said Michael Gerson
in The Washington Post. The movement’s core belief—heavily
promoted by Trump himself and right-wing media—is that “white,
Christian America” faces imminent destruction by evil liberal elites,
and “must be preserved by any means necessary.” In a new poll, a
stunning 55 percent of Republicans agree with the statement that
“the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that
we may have to use force to save it.” His angry followers “feel
cheated rather than defeated,” and they aren’t going away. In fact,
Trumpists may grow even more militant, said Ronald Brownstein
in CNN.com. The country is becoming only more racially diverse,
more culturally progressive, and more secular—the very changes
that gave rise to Trumpism. If Republicans won’t or can’t “excom-
municate” their extremists, democracy itself is in peril.Only in America
QThe Oregon Department
of Education is encouraging
teachers to take a course on
“dismantling racism in math-
ematics.” The course instructs
that the “focus on getting the
‘right’ answer” and students
being “required to ‘show their
work,’” are actually “toxic char-
acteristics of white supremacy
culture.” Teachers will be told
not to “perpetuate objectiv-
ity” by “upholding the idea
that there are always right and
wrong answers.”
QA Michigan ammuni-
tion supplier is requiring all
customers to affirm that they
didn’t vote for Joe Biden.
Owners of Fenix Ammunition
explained that Biden ran on a
“radical gun-control platform,”
which included “banning the
online sale of ammunition.”
A vote for Biden, they said,
was a vote “to bankrupt our
company,” and “we don’t want
your money.”Rich bitches,after Lulu, a border collie from Nashville, was left
$5 million by her wealthy owner Bill Dorris. Lulu will be cared for
by Dorris’ friend Martha Burton, 88, who said that while it will be
hard to spend that much money on the dog, “I’d like to try.”
Karens,with the formation of a Facebook support group for
women cursed with that now-demonized first name. The group
will help members bear the burden of Karen-ism, and encourage
a wider “culture of compassion that supports all human beings
regardless of what their name is.”
Elias Quezada, a 7-year-old Florida boy who hid in a garbage
bin that was dumped into a garbage truck. Sanitation worker
Waldo Fidele spotted Quezada on a surveillance camera and
turned off the truck’s compaction blades just in time. “I was going
to be a mashed potato,” a grinning Quezada noted afterward.Stopping the steal,after sharp-eyed TV viewers spotted
Michael van der Veen, a personal-injury lawyer who defended for-
mer President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial, pocketing
three U.S. Senate drink coasters at the conclusion of proceedings.
Fresh starts,after Spokane, Wash., police charged Marcus
Goodman, 31, with a carjacking 20 minutes after he was released
from jail. Goodman was promptly returned to jail.
Standing athwart, after William F. Buckley’s great-nephew, Leo
Brent Bozell IV, was charged with storming the Capitol on Jan. 6
to stop certification of the election. Bozell is the son of conserva-
tive media critic L. Brent Bozell III.Good week for:
Bad week for:
ReutersMcConnell: Done with TrumpIn other news
USPS preps plan for
slower, pricier delivery
Postmaster General Louis
DeJoy is preparing a plan to
end air transport of first-
class mail—meaning bills,
magazines, and even some
prescription medicines would
no longer arrive within one
to three days, according to a
report in The Washington Post.
The 10-year plan would lump
all first-class mail into a de-
livery window of three to five
business days, and include
a major hike in postage fees.
The planned changes follow
delivery delays that began
shortly after DeJoy, a major
Republican donor and former
logistics executive, began
instituting cost cuts across the
agency. On-time delivery rates
have plummeted, with only
38 percent of first-class mail
sent with a three- to five-day
window meeting delivery ex-
pectations at the end of 2020.