My goal with this post was not to point fingers and sling accusations just to shame Republicans. But, rather my goal was to point out what a serious problem it is for the Republican Party and the country. The party badly needs a “Jesus-in-the-Temple” moment to purge the corrupt elements from its ranks and to forge a new commitment to ethics.

After the events of last week, I wanted to say the answer to my question was a clear “YES!”. But, a handful of Republicans held fast and didn’t give in to the lawlessness (way to go Mitch McConnell? Am I really saying that? Mitch and his wife actually have their own ethical problems but on this issue he was on the right side ). But there is a major contingent within the party that has no respect for the law or the Constitution so of course they don’t care about ethics.

I hate to take this sort of approach but there needs to be extremely harsh punishment for every person involved in this. Federal prosecutors should not take it easy on anyone who was there. They should bring terrorism or even treason charges, maximum sentences, no plea deals.

And I wish the members who played footsy with these extremists for so long could get some comeuppance. There needs to be punishment for them as well but I don’t know if they technically violated any laws. But, if Hawley and Cruz and a few of the nuttiest House members get censured or even expelled, I won’t shed a tear.

…I’m pretty sure Jesse Benton is married to Ron Paul’s granddaughter and Rand Paul’s niece. This might be another nice favor for the Pauls after Rand recently kissed the president’s behind by whining in a Senate hearing that the election was stolen.

This is a well-done piece -it really gets to the heart of the “divisiveness” of our current politics. One side is interested in governing and cooperating with the party across the aisle in the old-fashioned, collegial ways. The other side is solely interested in accumulating as much power as possible, civility be damned. The Dems always take the high road and play nice, thinking that the GOP will take pause and change their ways. It never works. I always compare it to a game of pickup basketball: the Dems are playing by the rules, the Republicans are throwing dirty elbows.

No party has a monopoly on ethical behavior but the GOP is currently experiencing a period of historic corruption. In addition to Trump’s (and family’s) problems with ethics -his cabinet has been notoriously corrupt and several members resigned under ugly scandals: Price, Pruitt, Zeinke, Acosta (and others who came under scrutiny: Pompeo, Barr, Ross, Mulvaney). Congressional Republicans have also had an incredible run the last few years, from misusing campaign or taxpayer funds (D. Hunter, Schock, Fahrenthold) to aiding Russia/running interference for Trump (Nunes, Rohrabacher, Gaetz, J.Jordan), to #MeToo (Franks, Meehan) to the ever-popular STOCK Act (Loeffler, Perdue, Burr, C. Collins (+5 other House members)). That doesn’t even include Reps. Grimm and Gianforte, known for threatening and assaulting reporters. It’s incredible and sad.

And now that they’ve abandoned their commitment to ethics, they’re also waning on their commitment to democracy. It’s scary and let’s hope they don’t continue down this path.

Axne is the best player on the Dem’s roster and I really wish she would have considered a run against Ernst this November. She’s a dedicated and highly capable public servant who has done good work in her time as a House rep. And she strikes me as moderate enough to appeal to state-wide voters while also exciting progressive voters with her commitment to the issues (the only drawback is she’s from Polk/DM-area). The way the election shook out probably meant the GOP was going to win anyway, but I like to think Axne would’ve performed pretty well.

But the Dems desperately need to build a bench of good candidates and put the right ones on the field. I think Franken and Graham are good candidates but they had never ran for elected office before and its difficult, for anybody, to jump into a two-hundred million dollar Senate race in the biggest election year in history and expect to do well. But the field was wide open because the Dems never groomed anyone for the position and the nom went to Greenfield. The Dems essentially put rookies on the court against GOP veterans.

I’m dismayed that Iowa is now a deep-reddish shade of purple. And I blame that on the IDP not being able to find good candidates. Let’s hope they put the right ones on the field in 2022.

Thank you for this – very succinct and well done. I hate that this is a cheap scare tactic the GOP employs to frighten voters and it always seems to work. You don’t hear boo about socialism or communism except for every 4 years when suddenly moderate, church-going, business-owning Dems are suddenly Mao or Stalin. The Dems are not socialists or communists but are dumbstruck by the attacks and don’t know how to react. I find it offensive to be called a socialist.

This is another dangerous path that the GOP is going down (I don’t really expect them to behave responsibly anymore but…). They define anything the Democrats do as socialist/communist: if you think the government should operate at a competent level to provide certain basic services, you’re a socialist. If you think corporations should maybe pay more than $0 in taxes, you’re a communist. ANd they of course ignore the extremely helpful role the govt has played in the private sector, helping corporations with incentives, rulings, contracts and subsidies over the years.

The modern GOP is closer to plutocracy/oligarchy than the Dems are to socialism. Wish they could flip the script on this issue.