The Runback: Moral Bankruptcy
There was a time when the Republican Party could claim the moral high ground when compared to the Democrats. That day has long, long passed.
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News and Politics
Dan Rodricks and His Battle Within: Does Dan Rodricks feel truly unwelcome in Church? Or is his conscience talking to him?
The Most Ignorant of All Columns: Michelle Deal-Zimmerman of The Sun writes one of the most unserious newspaper columns of all time
Lisa Rodvien's Full-Time Entitlement: Though privileged Democrats feel that they are important and entitled enough to receive full-time pay and benefits for part-time work, Maryland residents just don't need full time County Councils
Brandon Scott Gives Up: The Mayor of Baltimore has abdicated his responsibility to Baltimore by lawyering up instead of cracking down
May 2023 Maryland U.S. Senate Power Rankings: For the first time in eight years, Maryland has an open U.S. Senate seat.
The Monday Thought
It seems like only yesterday that Evangelicals and the Morali Majority reigned supreme in the Republican Party.
Now, we see a situation where the rot of complete moral bankruptcy oozes from the GOP out of every crevice. We know why.
The following is a sample of headlines surrounding Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump just from the last week. This doesn’t take into account the pages upon pages of moral rot that Trump has imported to the GOP since he came down that escalator in 2015.
“As Donald Trump continues to surge in the polls, his 2024 GOP opponents offered little criticism after a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation and ordered him to pay $5 million to E. Jean Carroll on Tuesday. As Shelby Talcott and Morgan Chalfant write, it underscored how hesitant rivals are to attack him over any of his many, many legal problems, for fear of alienating his supporters. To put it another way: They appear to have decided that Trump really could shoot someone on 5th Ave. without losing any votes — but that they themselves might for bringing it up.”
“Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself, even as hard nosed reporters scream questions about this case at me,” Trump wrote. “In the meantime, the other side has a book falsely accusing me of Rape, & is working with the press. I will therefore not speak until after the trial, but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome!”
Trump’s assertion that he was “not allowed to speak or defend [himself]” is objectively false. He had been previously admonished by the judge regarding his Truth Social posts about the case, but he always had the option to come and testify.
Mr. Trump has a decades-long history of crude and misogynistic comments — and he has faced repeated accusations of sexual harassment and assault, so many that they most likely would have sunk any other candidate. But a majority in the Republican Party have largely dismissed the accusations against a celebrity former president as irrelevant to how they cast votes.
But comments and even allegations are different from a jury verdict.
But what’s most damning about all of this? Is that Republicans still won’t abandon Trump. His rivals for the Republican nomination won’t touch it.
“The irony,” a Republican strategist mused to Semafor on the day a jury found former president Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, “is that Trump would absolutely use this against anyone else.”
But Trump is Trump, of course, and the rules are well established. “Imitating his tactics is unwise,” the strategist said. “I mean, can you imagine someone heckling him on stage with this?”
Much of the presumptive 2024 field — including former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and former Ambassador Nikki Haley — remained silent or declined to comment.
Vivek Ramaswamy defended the former president, telling Semafor in a statement the verdict was a “part of the establishment system's anaphylactic immune response against its chief political virus, Donald Trump” (the virus was a good thing in this metaphor).
Only Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie had the balls to say anything about it at all because most elected Republicans have either fallen for Trump’s cockamamie nonsense are don’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to Trumpworld and say “ENOUGH.”
Meanwhile, Trump continues to pull the GOP into the abyss. Just look at the freakshow that pulled through a Trump property over the weekend:
Starting Thursday evening, crowds are expected to gather at former President Donald Trump’s Doral resort for a weekend conference of conservative figures, some of whom have espoused debunked claims about elections and vaccines.
Thousands are meeting at Trump National Doral Miami for the latest stop of the ReAwaken America Tour, an event that features Christian themes and appearances around the country by some of Trump’s inner circle. According to its founder, the gathering seeks to save the nation by exposing the truth about fraud in elections, healthcare and the media.
The event shows the extent to which election deniers, anti-vaxxers and Jan. 6 sympathizers continue to surround Trump, the leading candidate to secure the 2024 Republican nomination for president.
The tour, which began in 2021, has promoted conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump and that “elites” operating a child sex-trafficking ring conspired against the former president. The event’s founder Clay Clark, an entrepreneur and former candidate for mayor of Tulsa, has described the COVID-19 vaccine as a “bio-weapon” on Rumble, an alternative to YouTube that gained popularity with conservatives during the pandemic.
Some of the speakers are part of Trump’s inner circle, including son Eric Trump, daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes.
Great work everybody.
There was a time when the Republican Party could claim the moral high ground when compared to the Democrats. That day has long, long passed. The two major parties continue in a high-speed race to the bottom. Meanwhile, the rest of us are just looking to stay afloat.