By Shari Rose | May 29, 2017
President Donald Trump’s admiration for world dictators is nothing new. He’s said publicly he’d be “honored” to meet North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and is seemingly impressed with his strong-arm tactics, including that time the infallible leader reportedly murdered his uncle: “Even though it is a culture and it’s a cultural thing, he goes in, he takes over, and he’s the boss. It’s incredible,” Trump said of North Korea’s leader in January 2016.
Trump called to congratulate Turkey’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for winning a referendum which effectively cripples Turkey’s democratic process and hands Erdogan unprecedented power. This all comes on the heels of a failed coup in Turkey last July. Since the coup attempt, The Washington Post reports that Erdogan “has jailed at least 144 journalists and shuttered or seized control of more than 150 media companies.”
And of course, Trump has an almost comically one-sided bromance with Russian president and bad guy trope of every Hollywood movie from the 1980s, Vladimir Putin: “He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country,” Trump said on MSNBC in December 2015.
Don’t expect a real Republican response any time soon
In the midst of all this, one has to wonder where do the members of Trump’s own party stand on this affinity for strongmen and straight up dictators? Turns out, Republicans are doing a lot less standing up for American values and a lot more running from situations that would require them to, you know, be leaders.
Republican leaders in Congress were such big talkers when Obama was around, remember? Paul Ryan continually lambasted Obama’s policies throughout his tenure, saying Obama “degrades the presidency,” and fear-mongered his constituents with one-liners such as “we are living in an Ayn Rand novel.”
Ryan’s attempts to dismantle Obamacare every step of the way only further exposes his hypocrisy in pushing GOP’s destructive health bill that would be a little bit funny if 23 million Americans weren’t going to lose their healthcare because of it.
There’s also majority leader Mitch McConnell, who infamously said to a reporter, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Actually, the most important thing you’re required to do has nothing to do with party, you turtle-faced invertebrate. The oath you took when becoming a senator is to “support and defend the Constitution.” McConnell has suffering from amnesia to say the least since Trump took over.
RELATED: Trump’s “Day of Patriotic Devotion” is as Orwellian as it gets
So while Trump has been inexplicably fluffing world dictators, Republican leaders in Congress have been honing the fine art of speaking out of their asses while simultaneously moving their lips.
Silver lining though, if this whole politician thing doesn’t work out when Trump finally hits the fan, they could always have a job as very boring ventriloquists.
However, the pussy-footing around destruction of American norms and values doesn’t stop with just the leaders within the GOP.
Congressional Republicans are literally running away from reporters
When certain party members aren’t body slamming reporters for asking about the healthcare bill, other Republicans are running away from questions these days.
Perhaps someone should remind them that Paul Revere was riding his horse so fast because he was warning America about the British, not avoiding responsibilities of the job he was elected to do.
Under this leadership, (only in title, not by action) the GOP has enabled Trump’s destructive policies, which includes jamming through a truly cruel health care proposal to the Senate, and remaining eerily silent on developments coming out of the Russia investigation.
GOP silence on the firing of FBI director would be astounding if they had shown any backbone in the face of the Trump administration until this point, but to the detriment of American democracy, Republicans have consistently chosen the easy way out and placed themselves over country.
These are the same people who have used 9/11 like some emotional buzzword to carry them through multiple election cycles by attacking Democrats in Congress for essentially not being patriotic enough. This is the group who cried tyranny when Obamacare materialized and includes many who refused to flatly deny birtherism to avoid the ire of the Tea Party.
You know your backbone is merely jelly when you hesitate to come out and say whether the black president was born in Kenya or America. Maybe they were hoping they’d sort of collapse on themselves and sink back into the ground to avoid more questions.
The people are politicians’ karma
In a true democracy, karma exists in one real form: the people. People are politicians’ karma. And that requires a little participation on our part.
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