The GOP Is Weak On Terrorism (Because They Vote Republican)

 The Republican Party used to call themselves the party of "law and order". They're going to have to abandon that label, because they are very weak on controlling terrorism. The biggest terrorist threat for the last few years has been from right-wing groups -- especially racist and white supremacist groups. The Republicans have tried to hide that fact, and even after the insurrection by those groups at the Capitol, they don't want to clamp down on those groups. Why? Because those terrorist elements vote Republican, and the GOP doesn't want to alienate any part of their base.

The following is part of an op-ed by Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post:

The Republican attitude about the attack on the Capitol is entirely at odds with the reality of the threat we face. As the danger of domestic terrorism rises, Senate Republicans are still foot-dragging on the confirmation of Alejandro Mayorkas to be homeland security secretary. . . .

This raises the question: Are Republicans comfortable with the moniker “weak on terror”? It seems so, at least when it is white supremacists who are the terrorists. Given the growing threat of domestic terrorists linked to the Jan. 6 action, Republicans’ indifference toward addressing domestic terrorism and punishing the former president for stoking a violent insurrection is as breathtaking as it is predictable. The Republican Party’s notion of “law and order” seems to have evaporated. . . .

Perhaps their excuse for acquitting the former president is not so much based on the argument that the Senate cannot convict a former president (a flimsy rationale easily rebutted by precedent and the text of the Constitution), but instead on their own aversion to tackling white supremacists. After courting the MAGA crowd, doing their bidding in seeking to overturn the election and taking offense at President Biden’s innocuous comments denouncing white supremacists who attacked the Capitol, perhaps Republicans are nervous that the impeachment trial hits a little too close to home. When Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) raises a fist in solidarity with the Confederate flag-waving, noose-carrying crowd, the problem goes well beyond the former president.

By averting their eyes from the former president who instigated an attempted violent coup, they are “putting themselves on the wrong side of the American people and also of history,” (Senator) Blumenthal says. Even if the Senate cannot convict the ex-president, “There is real virtue in a public trial regardless of the outcome.”

Indeed, one could make the case that it is not simply Trump who should be on trial. The Republican Party as a whole needs to be held responsible for feeding anti-immigrant sentiment, coddling armed white supremacists, perpetrating the Big Lie that the election was stolen and, yes, refusing to hold the instigator of a domestic terrorist attack responsible. They are not simply weak on domestic terrorism; their indifference makes us all less safe.