Hilary Clinton was excoriated during the 2016 presidential election campaign for referring to everyday Trump supporters as "the deplorables." Well, that word befits Republicans in high places for giving credence to his "Big Lie" about the 2020 election and his effort to overturn the results.
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"I miss Mr. Trump," South Carolina's senior senator, Lindsey Graham, who during his campaign for the Republican nomination said of Trump, "If you’re a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot, you’re going to have a hard time being president of the United States, and you’re going to do irreparable damage to the party.”
Truer words were never spoken.
Donald Trump has done irreparable harm to the GOP, but what is deplorable is that Republicans in high places, like Lindsey Graham, former Attorney General William P. Barr, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have allowed this to happen. And there are scores more -- members of Congress, state officials in some red states, Republican candidates hoping to leverage support of Trump -- who are enabling the disgraced, defeated and twice-impeached former president in his ego-driven effort to undo democracy as we know it in our nation.
Sen. Lindsey Graham
Graham's comments came earlier this month in a Fox News interview that focused on foreign affairs in which he said Biden is weak in his dealings with foreign adversaries, including Russia and China.
What? Did I hear that right? Biden is weak compared to Trump when it comes to dealing with Russia? Excuse me, but which American president scraped and bowed and fawned over Vladimir Putin? I'll give you a clue if you don't already know. Both his hair and his makeup are orange.
And Graham then said Trump lost the election because his claim that the Covid 19 virus emanated from a lab in China, which is now being seriously considered, had been poo-pooed by experts in the U.S.
Oh, the fact that Trump said the virus would simply go away when the weather warmed or that we should ingest disinfectants to get rid of it, and that by election time a half million American lives had been lost -- that didn't have a thing to do with why he was kicked out of office?
So much for Graham. He's nothing but a sycophantic wannabe who also should be kicked to the curb. Too bad South Carolina is so red that they put up with his blathering about Trump and sent him back to Washington for another six years.
William P. Barr
Then we come to William P. Barr, the attorney general who used the Justice Department to give credence to Trump's false stolen election claims, even though he knew, in his words, "It was all bullshit."
According to an article by ABC News' Jonathan D. Karl in the Atlantic, Barr said “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bull---t.”
Nevertheless, Barr sent his U.S. attorneys into the states to investigate voting irregularities, giving credence to Trump's claims, in the eyes of his rabid supporters, as unfounded as they proved to be. In fact, on December 1, Barr publicly stated that the Justice Department had not found election fraud "on a scale" that would have changed the outcome, a statement that infuriated Trump.
Barr told the Atlantic that Trump said to him, “How the f*ck could you do this to me? Why did you say it?” Barr responded that he said it because it was true.
“You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump," Trump said, according to Barr.
Well, Mr. Former Attorney General, if you knew his claims were bullshit, why did you give them any air? Why did you, who are supposed to be "the people's lawyer," spend taxpayer dollars to conduct useless investigations into claims you knew were false? Now, you get to live with your fakery.
Sen. Mitch McConnell
And, finally, we come to Mitch McConnell, who, of course, was Senate majority leader at the time. For a lot of reasons, he could actually be called the "Deplorable-in-Chief."
In this instance, McConnell, fully realizing that Trump's claims were without foundation, nevertheless wanted Barr to stand up to Trump and take the heat instead of doing it himself. His concern? Not that it was causing further division and hurting the country by jeopardizing democracy; he just wanted to prevent two Georgia Democrats from winning U.S. Senate seats that were then at stake.
“Look, we need the president in Georgia,” McConnell told Barr, according to the excerpt in The Atlantic. “And so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”
“I understand that,” Barr replied. “And I’m going to do it at the appropriate time.”
Karl wrote that McConnell, in another call, pleaded with Barr to dispel Trump's election fraud claims.
“Bill, I look around, and you are the only person who can do it,” McConnell told him.
Mitch McConnell was the Senate Majority Leader, and he was wimping out, afraid of Trump, afraid of Trump's supporters who believed his every lie, and so the leader of the United States Senate wiggled and squirmed and asked Barr to take the heat.
Well, as we all know, it didn't work. The two Georgia Democratic candidates, Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof, both won giving Democrats control of the Senate and in the process, sent McConnell to the sidelines, now as minority leader.
And then on January 6 came the insurrection, the day when some 800 Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol and tried to stop official certification of the election of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. That, of course, failed, even as people died in the process. McConnell led the effort to acquit Trump after the House impeached him for inciting that tragic event.
Subsequently, an effort by Democrats to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection was blocked by McConnell-led Senate Republicans, an action that has forced Democrats to establish their own special committee to do that work.
And, most recently, McConnell blocked legislation passed by the House to reform elections, eliminate the filibuster, and countermand numerous Trump inspired election laws passed in numerous red states intended to make it more difficult for likely Democratic supporters to vote.
Deplorable? In describing that word, Websters should simply show pictures of Graham, Barr and McConnell. Nothing more need be said.