Republican Accountability is an Oxymoron

The House Republican caucus voted in secret to retain Liz Cheney (R-WY) in her leadership position despite her vote with the Democrats to impeach President Trump.

More on that later, but consider the below summary in the context that over 90% of Republican voters cast their ballots to reelect President Trump last year.

First the Republican National Committee had no nationwide campaign strategy that leveraged the widespread popularity of an incumbent Republican president. Then, despite foreknowledge of the election theft to come, the RNC had no legal strategy at all to either preempt the illegal state election law changes made by governors and secretaries of states or contest the fraud after Election Day. All legal challenges were left to the Trump campaign and “independent lawsuits.”

Next, despite the two months of election fraud evidence forthcoming from independent statistical analyses, at least 400 sworn affidavits in dozens of lawsuits filed in swing states, sworn testimony in election fraud hearings in several states, and videos of criminal conduct-in-action on Election Day, many elected Republicans in Congress (less 7 senators and 121 representatives) ducked their obligation to faithfully represent their own voters by rushing to certify an illegitimate president in the dead of night on 6 January with debating and reviewing any of that evidence. They didn’t even remark on the vote-shifting that took place in the tabulations reported in several states in real time on Election Day night that Americans saw on network news with their own eyes!

Concurrently, not a single Republican in the Senate or House leadership commented on the fact that only a tiny fraction of the lawsuits filed that were decided in the courts actually examined the evidence of fraud that had been meticulously compiled. Where were their demands to see the evidence reviewed in courts of law? Where was the unified Republican demand to forensically audit the ballots cast in the disputed states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada? And toss Minnesota, Colorado, New Jersey, and Michigan in for good measure, too!

Gutless Republicans rushing to congratulate Kamala Harris on the Senate floor. Elected Republicans in attendance at the “inauguration.” Spineless Republicans responding to angry letters from constituents about the stolen election and bailing out on the President (I’ve gotten some pabulum responses myself!).

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was entirely silent as he stood by and watched a repeat of the ballot counting fraud in Georgia during the special elections for two US senators. Could he have not paid any attention to the Georgia election fraud hearings or the repetition of that fraud that subsequently made him Senate minority leader?

Then there were the ten Republicans who voted with the Democrats to impeach President Trump in TWO DAYS without allowing for any defense by the President’s team. They did this before any real investigation of the 6 January event had even been completed and a timeline of events produced that clearly showed that the President DID NOT incite the “insurrection” that the Democrat-media complex have feverishly tried to sell to the nation since that day. How is that “properly representing your constituents” when the vast majority of their own Republican voters cast ballots for President Trump?

Fortunately, Liz Cheney (R-WY), the third-ranking House Republican was subsequently censured for her vote to impeach by Republican organizations in 10 Wyoming counties. Tom Rice (R-SC) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) have been censured by Republicans in their states, too. Seven of the ten who voted to impeach are already facing declared primary challengers in 2022. Out all of the above items, these seen Republicans are facing only accountability for their actions.

Then there were these 11 Republicans who voted with Democrats to strip Republican representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) from her committee assignments:

– M. Diaz-Balart (FL)
– B. Fitzpatrick (PA)
– C. Gimenez (FL)
– J. Katko (NY)
– Y. Kim (CA)
– A. Kinzinger (IL)
– N. Malliotakis (NY)
– C. Jacobs (NY)
– M. Salazar (FL)
– C. Smith (NJ)
– F. Upton (MI)

But it gets worse. In a secret 145-62 vote, the House Republican caucus voted to retain Liz Cheney in her leadership position. Never mind that that vote goes to the heart of the key political issue dividing the Republican Party at this time – the failure of Establishment Republicans to support the leader of their own party in President Trump. Republican voters deserve to know how their representatives voted. They all need to be held accountable, one way or the other. We need to know who voted to save Cheney so that they can be primaried in 2022, too. We know Minority Leader McCarthy (R-CA) made an impassioned speech to the conference on her behalf. Primary that guy! We also know this:

Rep. Tom Reed of New York said ahead of the meeting he had spoken with Cheney and noted that he’s willing to defend her during the conference meeting.

“So I told her that I will be a voice to say, ‘Hey, guys, you know we don’t purge our fellow members. That is not something we do. We are, as Republicans, we are a family, we air our differences, we settle it in the conference chamber just like I do with my loving older brothers and sisters, and we come out of it united,’” he said.

How’s that “family shtick” working for Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Tom? Primary that guy, too! Who else voted to keep Cheney in the House Republican leadership? Anyone who did so essentially condones her vote to impeach President Trump and needs to be primaried and booted. That the vote was held in secret is a clear indication that McCarthy et al know how politically damaging a vote to retain Cheney would be going forward. Once again, over 90% of Republican voters cast their ballots for President Trump. What might they have to say about their own representatives who voted to keep Cheney in her House leadership position after her vote to impeach?

There’s an old saying derived from Proverbs that “there’s no loyalty among thieves.” Well, that apparently applies to elected Republicans, too, as they have bailed out on the leader of their party since Election Day 2020 and are trying to avoid accountability to their own voters, too.

The end.