They need to be held accountable.
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.
Not trying to point fingers
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.