A Salutary Reminder About The GOPe
We all tend to focus on events in DC, and understandably so. National politics control much of what goes on at the state and local level. Nevertheless, we still have some semblance of a federal system, and we need to remember that local politics have led to the national debacle that we are witnessing. Today at at American Greatness, Gavin Wax drives that point home:
How the GOP Establishment Created Its Lin Wood Problem
Only the emergence of the Republican Party as a fully populist, America First entity can keep the wackiness at bay .
Wax agrees that Wood's current antics are a problem for the Republican party. He offers no opinion on Wood's motives or his mental state. He simply points out that the GOPe brought this upon themselves. You can surf the internet today and find all the usual suspects blaming Trump, blaming Sidney Powell, but the reality is that the GOPe has only itself to blame:
[Wood] is a release valve for a growing movement of people who are angry, disaffected, looking for answers, and becoming increasingly convinced that there is a dark, all-powerful conspiracy working in the shadows to destroy their rights.
But is that really crazy? In many ways, particularly given how the Republican Party establishment has behaved since the election, they have a point.
Rather than focusing on John Roberts and the Trump Threesome at the SCOTUS, or on Bill Barr and John Durham, or even on Mitch McConnell and so many others in Congress, Wax wants us to remember the role of the state party apparatus--and with good reason, as I've also had occasion to mention. Without the state parties nothing like the extent of this could have happened:
Republican Party officials in battleground states have emerged as the enforcer class for the vote steal. Georgia has become the standard bearer in this regard, with Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger dropping the ball in ways that seem to go beyond mere incompetence. ...
Kemp and Raffensperger are not outliers. There have been Republican public officials in other battleground states who seem to be celebrating the most heinous political crime in U.S. history.
In Arizona, Governor Doug Ducey made it a point to certify the state’s vote count as hearings were being conducted simultaneously featuring whistleblowers offering crucial first-hand testimony of abnormalities that put the vote into question. The long-time McCain crony even ignored a phone call from President Trump, demonstrating his contempt. Then, to emphasize his deliberate slap in the face of his constituents, Ducey made it worse by hamming it up with the [Soros backed] Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and issued a lengthy public statement claiming this career left-wing activist never could have possibly allowed fraud to persist in his state.
It’s the same story in Michigan. ..., the fraud in the Great Lakes State has been swept under the rug by GOP leaders. Republican State House Speaker Lee Chatfield repeatedly has stated that the legislature will do nothing to overturn the fraud, even working to deny legislators from entering the Capitol to deliver a slate of pro-Trump electors. Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey cleared Dominion voting systems of any wrongdoing shortly after a forensic report indicated major systemic concerns with the software similar to ones outlined in a pre-election letter written by Senate Democrats. And it was a top GOP attorney who cast the deciding vote to certify the electoral results in the state.
It could also be added that the Republican controlled legislatures in PA and WI have taken no effective steps when such steps could have made a difference. The scale of what has taken place could not have happened without national coordination:
With this level of treachery and betrayal coming from the GOP establishment, it should come as no surprise that crackpots like Wood are gaining traction.
We are living through the total institutional collapse of the West at this very moment. People are scared, they’re desperately looking for answers, and they know for certain that they cannot get them from the mainstream institutions that have failed them so miserably.
The answer is to support those who prove themselves independent of the GOPe. Politics won't come to an end now, but we need real alternatives. What part Trump can or will play in this remains to be seen. We may get some clue later today. Or in the next several weeks. But one thing is clear: Politics as usual is over for those who care about America.