A breakdown of all 126 seditious Republicans who signed on for a coup d’état

When Texas sued to overturn four other states’ election results in the hopes of installing illegitimate, two-time popular vote loser, and white supremacist mediocrity Donald Trump into a second presidential term, they exposed how many elected officials are straight-up wannabe oligarchs. The fact that even in the upside-down world we are living in, with the hijacked ultra conservative Supreme Court in place, most everybody knew there was little chance of the Supreme Court stepping in and hearing the case, which should tip one off to how far afield this maneuver is. It’s the kind of thing that most people would rather not put their name on since it is the sort of thing people should go to jail for—if laws concerning sedition and treason are real laws.

Many of the people on this list came into office during the tea party wave of 2010. If you don’t remember what the tea party is, it’s sort of like if you looked at the American Revolution for independence and democracy and your takeaway was … being a racist asshole. Another way to look at it is if you looked at the Civil War in the United States and boiled it down to … being a racist asshole. Let’s make sure we remember the 126 fascists who signed on for this attack on American democracy, and maybe even learn a smidgen more about them and their histories of being terrible people. A tip of the hat goes to community members republicinsanity and Carmeninvermont—republicinsanity for the Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day series that is frequently sourced here, and Carmeninvermont for the easy-to-read and understand list of GOP anti-democracy Republicans who want to overthrow our elections process in order to hoist up the most mediocre man in American history.

Here is a nice list of the 126 Republican officials who whether charged with sedition and treason or not, are guilty of trying to, at the very least, thwart the will of the American people and overturn our democratically elected president:

Mike Johnson of Louisiana’s 4th Congressional District made small headlines this past summer when his attempts to “gotcha” assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland Aaron Zelinsky for not appearing in person during a pandemic blew up in his face. Zelinsky, who had a newborn at home, explained that he had spoken with his family’s doctor and they thought potentially exposing the newborn to a pandemic wasn’t a good move.

Gary Palmer of Alabama’s 6th Congressional District is one of those conservative think tankers whose big ideas include: attacking same sex marriage and nonbinary public restrooms. Big thinker.

Steve Scalise of Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District is a storied hypocrite and swamp creature of epic proportions.

Jim Jordan of Ohio’s 4th Congressional District is a person, so cowardly and so craven, he has built a career on his ability to ignore some of the most heinous crimes happening under his watch. Jordan’s act of sedition comes down lower on his list of sins than most others on this list.

Ralph Abraham of Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District is a shoot from the hip bigot with ideas that were last considered fresh in 1770.

Rick W. Allen of Georgia’s 12th Congressional District has one truly great claim to fame, he “disgusted” some Republicans once upon a time by reading anti-LGBTQ passages from the Bible. Different times. Different times.

James R. Baird of Indiana’s 4th Congressional District was attacked with an insensitive and offensive mailer, by an out of state conservative super PAC in 2018, during his Republican primary. He seemed pretty offended at the time, but I guess he’s decided to let all of that go in order to overthrow the government.

Jim Banks of Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District spent the early weeks of the global pandemic to help pen a nonbonding resolution blaming China for COVID-19. That’s what he did to help Americans.

Jack Bergman of Michigan’s 1st Congressional District blamed the press for the domestic terrorist shooting that injured Rep. Steve Scalise.

Andy Biggs of Arizona’s 5th Congressional District didn't go so far as to call Democrats who didn’t applaud during Donald Trump’s State of the Union “treasonous” but did believe they were “disrespectful” and that they might have to answer to God. He’s also had to leave public events after being booed offstage for saying that climate change wasn’t settled science.

Gus Bilirakis of Florida’s 12th Congressional District came into the office he sort of inherited from his father. He’s been a good anti-women’s rights Republican since 2006 and pretty much does what he’s told to do. And he’s in Florida where Republicans tell you to do the real bottom of the barrel stuff.

Dan Bishop of North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District came into office after actual election fraudster Republican Mark Harris had to step away due to controversy over … election fraud. Bishop is best known for writing North Carolina’s anti-trans “bathroom bill.”

Mike Bost of Illinois’s 12th Congressional District is famously prone to outrageous outbursts. He’s also known for cowering away from constituents when asked about his attempts to rip away millions of people’s health insurance. 

Kevin Brady of Texas’s 8th Congressional District was that diminutive bald white guy that got a nice grin going in the Rose garden for when the Republican Party gave away billions to the rich in their tax scam. That’s his great achievement.

Mo Brooks of Alabama’s 5th Congressional District read Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf on the floor of the House in a twisted attempt to skewer the Democratic officials over their pursuit of an investigation into Trump’s campaign ties to Russia. He did this on the heels of calling for the National Guard to “be allowed to use whatever force is necessary to secure that border.”

Ken Buck of Colorado’s 4th Congressional District has faced questions over whether he pressured another party official to submit incorrect election results and then blew through some RNC money to make that fraud work. To call Buck a scumbag is offensive to bags filled with scum.

Ted Budd of North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District is one of the Republicans who signed on to this bit of treason while in quarantine, after announcing he had tested positive for COVID-19.

Tim Burchett of Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District believes in Bigfoot and eating roadkill instead of providing better social services.

Michael C. Burgess of Texas’s 26th Congressional District is the kind of guy that called for President Barack Obama to be impeached over Benghazi and then became suspiciously silent when Donald Trump was impeached for his law breaking and corruption-filled campaign.

Bradley Byrne of Alabama’s 1st Congressional District took time away from releasing racist attack ads to sign on for fascism!

Ken Calvert of California’s 42nd Congressional District is a famous “family values” hypocrite (see busted with pants around his ankles, with a sex worker who was not his wife).

Earl L. “Buddy” Carter of Georgia’s 1st Congressional District. I couldn’t find much on Buddy, but I do know that he doesn’t believe in democracy.

Ben Cline of Virginia’s 6th Congressional District was one of the dozen security threats with feet that breached national security for a hack partisan performance piece, led by Florida man Matt Gaetz.

Michael Cloud of Texas’s 27th Congressional District owes his seat to the fact that repeatedly disgraceful Blake Farenthold had to leave office, and Republicans have successfully repressed the vote in his district.

Mike Conaway of Texas’s 11th Congressional District knows a ton about stealing elections as he famously said, in 2017, that Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and other Democrats had enlisted “Mexican soap opera stars, singers and entertainers who had immense influence in those communities into Las Vegas, to entertain, get out the vote and so forth. Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada.”

Rick Crawford of Arkansas’s 1st Congressional District is maybe best known for his opposition to taking down Confederate monuments saying it was akin to Holocaust denialism and would lead to the closure of Holocaust museums. There’s not much else to say about that.

Dan Crenshaw of Texas’s 2nd Congressional District is a dirtbag who lies and pretends he isn’t just a groveling McConnell follower.

Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida’s 25th Congressional District has the distinction of being the first member of Congress to test positive for COVID-19. He will also be remembered as one of those Republicans who refused to speak to Donald Trump’s describing countries as “shitholes.” Courage is something these men do not have.

Jeff Duncan of South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District has enjoyed trying, and failing, to do away with important census data, by attempting to have it legislated out of being collected. Too much thinking for Mr. Duncan, I guess.

Neal P. Dunn of Florida’s 2nd Congressional District has made sure to tell news outlets how worried he was and is for children separated from their loved ones due to Trump and the Republican Party’s zero tolerance immigration policies. Not surprisingly, he’s done absolutely nothing to fix this inhumane practice.

Tom Emmer of Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District has complained about constituents wanting stuff like healthcare protections and he’s tried in vain to weaken the Endangered Species Act. He’s never been particularly interested in a Democracy and doesn’t plan on starting now.

Ron Estes of Kansas’s 4th Congressional District literally walked in a swamp in the hopes of riding his way through a tight election. Sadly, Estes never left that swamp, he seems to have just grown gills.

Drew Ferguson of Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District has a social media team that can’t tell the difference between World War II American soldiers and Nazis. True story!

Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District is the kind of guy that takes a question about the many outrageous attacks made publicly by Donald Trump and answers it by blaming Nancy Pelosi for being mean. But in Fleischmann’s defense, he’s been peddling the election fraud fantasy publicly, with zero evidence, since his lord and liege Trump told him to.

Bill Flores of Texas’s 17th Congressional District has made sure to point out that he would ignore the calls from his constituents in regards to Trump’s problematic relationship with Russia and instead make claims that same sex marriage led to civil unrest in Baltimore. The civil unrest in Baltimore connected to the death of Freddie Gray in police custody and the lack of justice he ultimately received.

Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District got off his high horse to finally openly expose himself as the right-wing, batshit bananas hack that he’s always been and pretended not to be.

Virginia Foxx of North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District took time away from analogizing the regulation of for-profit colleges with the Holocaust to practice some good old Nazi fascism and overthrow our Democracy. She also once tried to argue that the murder of Matthew Shepard was not a hate crime. In fact, she said the premise was a “hoax.”

Russ Fulcher of Idaho’s 1st Congressional District is a climate denier … as of 2018. He also claims that God wants Idahoians to mine the ground and log away the trees in the state.

Matt Gaetz of Florida’s 1st Congressional District is this guy. What can be said about Matt Gaetz that hasn’t been written in excrement on the soles of Donald Trump and Sean Hannity’s tiny shoes

Greg Gianforte, governor-elect of Montana, assaulted a reporter for asking tough questions and then lied about it to police.

Bob Gibbs of Ohio’s 7th Congressional District is the classic overly emotional conservative white male politician that uses hyperbole but demands that people take that incongruous hyperbole as fact.

Louie Gohmert of Texas’s 1st Congressional District is an unintelligent person but he is also a relatively powerful and disturbingly racist and unintelligent person.

Lance Gooden of Texas’s 5th Congressional District has been in the pocket of a Texas hotelier for years and owes most of his financial support to him. In fact, Gooden is in business with millionaire Monty Bennett and it seems that Bennett is the only person in the state of Texas that Gooden feels he needs to answer to. Gooden’s one claim to fame over the past couple of years was coming up with a plan to DNA test all new immigrants at the border, something that is problematic for about 1 million reasons.

Sam Graves of Missouri’s 6th Congressional District is the kind of guy that runs on homophobia.

Mark Green of Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District is also a homophobe with a history of trying to create laws that would allow for the wholesale discrimination of LGBTQ folks in businesses throughout the Volunteer State.

Michael Guest of Mississippi’s 3rd Congressional District is on the House Committee on Ethics. Drink that in: a guy that signed on for a coup d’etat represents Republican ethics in the House. Guest is also a supporter of Confederate fashion-lover and general old-timey racist Cindy Hyde-Smith.

Andy Harris of Maryland’s 1st Congressional District is a person who ran on a campaign against the Affordable Healthcare Act and then demanded to know why his government-sponsored healthcare didn’t take effect until after one month in office. And his dad was a Nazi-supporter—not like a neo-Nazi supporter, but an actual Germany during World War II Nazi supporter. Hubris is too nice a word for what Andy Harris is about.

Vicky Hartzler of Missouri’s 4th Congressional District is really most famous for being an anti-gay activist. Imagine if that was your claim to fame?

Kevin Hern of Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District is directly connected to arguably the single most corrupt official in recent Oklahoma history, Scott Pruitt. He’s also been a big promoter of superspreader COVID-19 events.

Clay Higgins of Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District is a former Louisiana police officer who lost his job for what would be considered criminal behavior if he hadn’t been on the unjust side of the thin blue line. He’s also a scary racist fascist who believes in authoritarian rule.

Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana’s 9th Congressional District believes that the hundreds of thousands of Americans dead from COVID-19 are the “lesser of these two evils.” The other evil in that sentence is “our way of life as Americans.”

Richard Hudson of North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District is your run-of-the-mill, anti-women’s rights, Obama birther conspiracy theorist, demands drug testing in exchange for food assistance Republican. 

Bill Huizenga of Michigans 2nd Congressional District has been investigated for corruption and has gone so far as to try and get rid of corruption laws that might conflict with his … corruption.

Bill Johnson of Ohio’s 6th Congressional District is a big Islamophobe GOP official. That seems to be his main strength. Like many of the people on this list, Johnson came into office on the ultra-conservative tea party wave of 2010. 

John Joyce of Pennsylvania’s 13th Congressional District is new to the scene, but we now know one thing about his political ideology.

Fred Keller of Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District barely understands his own elections, let alone national ones.

Mike Kelly of Pennsylvanias 16th Congressional District has been on board this election fraud train since suing to have Black people’s votes in Pennsylvania nullified.

Trent Kelly of Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District gave his in-person seal of approval on the Trump administration’s family separation practices.

Steve King of Iowa’s 4th Congressional District is a lame duck racist who would sign anything so long as the devil told him to.

David Kustoff of Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District’s biggest claim to fame is being a sort of poor man’s Tom Cotton.

Darin LaHood of Illinois’s 18th Congressional District took time away from trying to govern women’s bodies with his Bible to sign off on treason!

Doug LaMalfa of California’s 1st Congressional District has been promoting doubt about the Democratic process, with zero evidence, since the beginning of November. LaMalfa is a mixture of painfully pathetic xenophobia along with quoting the bible to deny climate science.

Doug Lamborn of Colorado’s 5th Congressional District is the guy that continued to force his staff to work in the close proximity of his office during the current pandemic, and then reportedly told his staff not to tell their roommates about COVID-19 symptoms they were having after coming into contact with someone with COVID-19. Think about that.

Robert E. Latta of Ohio’s 5th Congressional District has magically increased his wealth while in Washington by a reported 238%, and while he isn’t the wealthiest Ohio Republican, he’s made the biggest jump in wealth since entering office. Strange!

Debbie Lesko of Arizona’s 8th Congressional District once said that the dozens of sexual assaults alleged against Donald Trump should be investigated and then promptly forgot all about that as she co-sponsored a bill that would require women to prove to their employers that they took birth control for reasons other than … birth control. 

Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District’s main function in the Republican Party is to figure out ways to allow payday lenders to launder their money. 

Kenny Marchant of Texas’s 24th Congressional District is retiring and throwing democracy under the bus as he walks out the door.

Roger Marshall of Kansas’s 1st Congressional District is the kind of guy that runs away from answering questions and participating in debates while also plagiarizing other people’s campaigns, because he has no ethical standards.

Tom McClintock of California’s 4th Congressional District is the kind of guy that was still hanging out with right-wing criminal and strange lying machine Dinesh D’Souza. D’Souza is one of those guys that almost makes you feel bad for being a human being.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington’s 5th Congressional District is a person that literally said she had made "protecting those with pre-existing conditions” a “priority” during her time in office. She voted to repeal those very protections nine times—as in one less than 10 times.

Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania’s 9th Congressional District has called the Postal Service’s dismantling by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy a “fabricated problem being pushed by Democrats.”

Carol D. Miller of West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District has the distinction of being the only new woman Republican congressional member in the 2018 blue wave election cycle. Miller wants to make sure the other fascists in her party know that she, too, can be a fascist!

John Moolenaar of Michigan’s 4th Congressional District’s only claim to fame has been to vote against calling Donald Trump’s racist statement against “the Squad” racist. This makes John Moolenaar a racist.

Alex X. Mooney of West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District was one of the dunderheaded crew of Matt Gaetz-led legislators breaking the law and threatening the country’s national security in the hopes of being on camera

Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District doesn’t know how many branches of government there are, nor does he understand how government works. He’s clearly not alone in this.

Gregory Murphy of North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District told the public that the only reason Sen. Kamala Harris was chosen to be Joe Biden’s running mate was because of “her color and her race.” He finished that thought by wondering aloud if this was “how we pick our leaders now in America??” I guess Murphy is hoping that we just pick a white pseudo-billionaire to make important decisions for a majority of people that do not want him to?

Dan Newhouse of Washington’s 4th Congressional District is one of the many Republican officials that recently contracted COVID-19.

Ralph Norman of South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District brandished a loaded weapon during a constituent breakfast and placed it on the table in front of people discussing gun safety.

Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District once argued that God, as in the Judeo-Christian deity of the Bible, was an environmental polluter like, say, Duke Energy.

Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania’s 14th Congressional District believes that the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police means that taxpayers should invest more money into police departments. He’s also a guy that wrote a forward for an incredibly hate-filled book, and then said he hadn’t read the book, even though his forward was about reading the writer’s hate-filled work. U-S-A!

Tom Rice of South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District spent weeks in the state legislature refusing to wear a mask indoors and then announced that he and his wife and his son had all tested positive for COVID-19.  

John Rose of Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District’s big claim to fame was being one of the many Republicans, at different times, to block disaster relief help for Puerto Rico.

David Rouzer of North Carolina’s 7th Congressional District is a Trump defender with all of the general Republican bonafides we have come to expect: tax breaks for the rich, voting against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and being a part of the Gaetz impeachment crash party.

John Rutherford of Florida’s 4th Congressional District has frequently been dragged on Twitter for the most racist and idiotic attacks on Democratic women of color.

Austin Scott of Georgia’s 8th Congressional District recently tested positive for COVID-19.

Mike Simpson of Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District took his head from out of his own ass long enough to sign on for fascism.

Adrian Smith of Nebraska’s 3rd Congressional District sort of disappeared on his constituents, just  like the rest of the Republican Party during this year’s pandemic.

Jason Smith of Missouri’s 8th Congressional District’s great moment of cleverness was when he attacked the ACA for taxing tanning salons, saying Democrats might as well “tax the sun.” He also spun it as a tax on women. Of course, Smith had a long history of attacking women in the legislature by trying to defund Planned Parenthood, as well as attacking children by voting against Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program funds.

Ross Spano of Florida’s 15th Congressional District took time away from his campaign finance scandal, and losing his primary, to support another one-term corrupt politician.

Elise Stefanik of New York’s 21st Congressional District is something of an easily verifiable liar. Let’s all look forward to the day, likely a few weeks from now, when Stefanik tells a local news reporter that she never supported the wholesale destruction of the democratic process.

Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District is a big Second Amendment fella who has said things in the past like “You know, the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. It’s about safety. If someone is coming into my house in the middle of the night to hurt my family, I want as many bullets as possible.” I guess he needs all the bullets to shoot holes in Democratically casted votes?

Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District knows lots about election fraud and election law violations as he has been tied to all kinds of under-the-table, dirty, and likely illegal tricks to win his position in Wisconsin’s legislature.

William Timmons of South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District is most recently remembered for defending Trump’s racism by saying everybody is being called racist and so nobody is racist. Trying to get rid of Black Americans’ votes wholesale is a great example of an attempt at systemizing racism. Just a thought.

Ann Wagner of Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District is one of the legislators in Congress with the least amount of votes on actual legislation. I guess she’s lazy? She was one of the first Republican officials to stand in front of microphones and tell Americans that based on her high level of knowledge, from “multiple, multiple briefings at the federal level,” she knew—as of March 7—that the United States was at a very “low risk” of having a COVID-19 pandemic. Ann Wagner should be disqualified from doing anything but eating oatmeal.

Tim Walberg of Michigan’s 7th Congressional District is one of those “family values” Republicans who wants to take away everyone else’s rights using the federal government. 

Michael Waltz of Florida’s 6th Congressional District is already having newspapers who endorsed him apologize for supporting sedition. This is one of those “never Trumpers” who very quickly began licking the boots of Donald Trump the moment Trump came into power.

Randy Weber of Texas’s 14th Congressional District replaced Ron Paul in Congress. There’s not much more that needs to be said. A second-rate version of Ron Paul, while better than the fifth-rate version of Paul that is Rand, is still worse than having an old can of Tab sitting in a seat and being your representative.

Daniel Webster of Florida’s 11th Congressional District is … so much Florida!

Brad Wenstrup of Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District just followed in the footsteps of Jim “I-turn-the-other-way-when-being-told-about-the-wholesale-molestation-of-young-people-I’m-supposed-to-be-in-charge-of” Jordan.

Bruce Westerman of Arkansas’s 4th Congressional District has sat on top of a pile of logging industry money for years and shockingly (read: “not shockingly”) has been a lead sponsor on some super anti-climate, pro-logging bits of legislation that attempt to hand our trees over to private industry for profit.

Roger Williams of Texas’ 25th Congressional District is the guy that tried to pressure a bank to help out his flailing oil investor donor. Swamp stuff.

Joe Wilson of South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District loves to vote for American wars but not for healthcare funding for American veterans of said wars. He’s almost a perfect Republican! He’s also in a district that’s drawn deeply red and acts like the petty little emperor he wants to be.

Rob Wittman of Virginia’s 1st Congressional District was able to fly mostly under the radar for his attempts at profiteering off of the COVID-19 pandemic when he bought into a pharmaceutical company which was producing an antiviral drug that hoped to help with COVID-19 treatments, and at the exact same time emailing his constituents that there was no coronavirus pandemic in the United States, and you didn’t need to worry about it. You know, like a real piece of shit.

Ron Wright of Texas’s 6th Congressional District is a relatively new congressman, whose views on school mass shootings include calling for public hangings as a solution. Not working on the gun thing, just hanging people.

Ted S. Yoho of Florida’s 3rd Congressional District is the soon-to-be retiring congressman from Florida who famously “didn’t attend one single deposition” as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when Congress was investigating Trump’s Ukrainian bribery. He’s also the sweetie pie who, in a confrontation with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez resorted to calling her a “fucking bitch,” because his ability to debate matches the size of his courage.

Lee Zeldin of New York’s 1st Congressional District is best known for his intense Islamophobia and his unerring and idiotic support of the Trump administration from Day One.

Remember these (mostly white) men (and a couple of white women). They are the people who hope to be a middle-management fascistic vanguard in an oligarchy for the rich. Share your own stories about any of the people listed above down below in the comments.

Happy New Year!

Trump’s helping Moscow muck with our elections fits the strict constitutional definition of treason

Throughout the history of the Republic, traitorous and treasonous have held a broader, more generic meaning for treason than the one found in the U.S. Constitution. The rebellious founders, having themselves been traitors to the British Crown—and being fully familiar with how English treason laws had been extended and abused in what was then the not-very-distant past—the drafters wisely kept to the narrowest of definitions in the first paragraph of Article III, Section 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Thus, while many Americans have been harassed or imprisoned on suspicions of disloyalty, something wrongly but popularly equated with treason, trials have been rare, convictions rarer, and none has included a president. Not even, as it turns out, the president of the Confederate States of America who conspired with others to initiate the bloodiest war ever fought on U.S. territory. Andrew Johnson made sure neither Jefferson Davis nor the top generals nor other prominent rebels ever would be prosecuted when he granted amnesty to all Confederates before leaving the presidency in 1869. That leniency factored in spurring these obvious traitors into becoming iconic heroes. Statues of some of the worst aren’t just rampant in town squares across the South, they are also still displayed like heroes in the nation’s Capitol. 

Since even the leaders of the slavocrats’ rebellion were given a pass a century and a half ago—with at least 900,000 people moldering in the ground from the slaughter they started—how could I possibly suggest that the man who now sits in the big chair in the Oval Office should be treated more harshly than they? And, besides, how does anything Donald J. Trump is doing qualify for the justifiably and thankfully narrow constitutional definition?

On the first point, I would argue that failing to try the leading Confederates and deconstructing Reconstruction were mistakes that have paid horrible dividends to the African American population ever since. It was meant to reunite, to reconcile. But reconciliation without truth paves the way for future evil. Our nation’s political and social dynamic today is still profoundly affected by that decision.

Secondly, U.S. intelligence services have concluded and explained to selected members of Congress that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election. There’s a difference of opinion over whether or not they said the Russians are specifically working to help Sen. Bernie Sanders get the Democratic nomination as a means of getting Donald Trump reelected. Whatever the Russians’ specific strategy, what matters is that they are meddling. 

The public hasn’t yet learned the classified specifics of exactly how the interference is happening. But if it is like 2016 plus the honing and polishing of the four years since, we can assume that in addition to the deluge of disinformation, the fake news, and the whole social media assault, the Russians will be hacking into pieces of our insecure electronic election infrastructure. Perhaps this will be to alter results or simply to create chaos by persuading people they can’t trust their vote to be tallied correctly, so why bother to show up? 

Cyberwarfare is war. Kremlin attacks on U.S. elections in hopes of advancing the interests of Vladimir Putin and other Russian oligarchs by weakening America are clearly as much a threat to national security as would be, say, an attack on the software of a few chemical plants or the electrical grid—potentially lethal acts achieved without firing a shot. Attacks on our elections and on the election apparatus that Senate Republicans won’t allow to be made secure can have lethal impacts on what is becoming an increasingly fragile democracy. One of the many faces of 21st century conflict. Sun Tzu would recognize its value immediately: “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

Donald Trump has chosen to abet Moscow's attack on U.S. national security via election meddling. By purging the veteran intelligence experts who have done their job and by appointing a right-wing toady without a shred of relevant experience to oversee 17 intelligence entities—plus calling the assessment that Russia is at it again a “hoax”—the man in the White House has adhered to, if not an American enemy, certainly an adversary. He is giving Russian meddlers the comfort of knowing that he’s doing all he can to smooth the way for them to meet whatever meddling quotas they are assigned, and he aids them by making it obvious that anybody who reports the meddling is happening will be fired.

What Trump has done, what he is now doing, meets the strict definition of treason in the Constitution. No doubt the lawyers will tell me I am full of it. That including cyberwarfare as the same as a declared war is bogus, even though we’ve had plenty of wars but none declared since 1942. They’ll also remind me what just happened with the impeachment vote in the Senate.

No way will Trump ever be tried for treason, of course, so why bother to bring it up? Because Trump is a traitor. Because he’s thrown open the door to bad actors, not sneakily the way he has done so many things, but in broad daylight. This isn’t speculation about something that will happen someday down the road. It’s happening right damn now.

Trump knows the Republican He-Did-It-So-What? Caucus will never convict him for treason or anything else. If it got as far as another impeachment, Alan Dershowitz would argue that Trump can order the strafing of an entire U.S. Army division on Fifth Avenue and not be liable for prosecution. The GOP would have no trouble if Trump made a deal for Russia to write software for swing state voting machines and made a fat commission off it.

Trump’s protectors will shield him no matter what and he will do whatever. The word for that in these circumstances isn’t supporters, it’s accomplices. If the constitutional machinery of the Republic is inadequate to oust this traitor, if he can’t be defeated at the polls or won’t leave office if he is defeated, then “street politics” will be all that remains. That’s far from a happy prospect.

Sen. Rand Paul tries to out whistleblower during impeachment, #ArrestRandPaul goes viral on Twitter

Wednesday evening, reports came out that Sen. Rand Paul was trying his darndest to out the alleged “whistleblower” by getting Chief Justice Roberts to say the name inside of a question, to be read during the Senate impeachment trial. It’s the kind of rich kid douchebaggery one expects from a 1980s teen movie villain … and Rand Paul. Because of the bad press that justifiably rained down on him, Sen. Paul illegally went out to talk with reporters during the Senate impeachment trial to clear his name by continuing to be a gruesome person and even worse senator. It’s important to note here that Sen. Rand Paul does shitty things on occasion like this, mostly to remind the country that he’s still here. Also because, like his dad, he’s mostly interested in his own power, and also like his dad, his libertarian ideas are worthless and cyclically ebb and flow with the rise and fall of fascism.

And so Rand was able to make the day’s headlines, and stay in those headlines, but not because people think the gold-diapered baby senator is a patriot. No, people had Sen. Paul on their minds for a very different reason altogether—American history and common sense. #ArrestRandPaul began to trend on Twitter, and took off.

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No. No there’s not.

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And people aren’t saying it simply as a joke.

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And while it is preaching to the choir, the depth of this move, the true inhumanity and bleakness of soul that it takes to put people’s lives in jeopardy over some worthless political points that you might get from Donald Trump, is pathetic.

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If our justice system was even half working at this point, Sen. Rand Paul would be in a whole heap of very real trouble.

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Nixon backers’ obits suggest history won’t be kind to those who don’t support Trump impeachment

Ryan Goodman, editor in chief over at Just Security, published a very interesting piece on Wednesday. In it, Goodman goes back through history and looks at the 10 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who voted both for and against the impeachment of then-President Richard Nixon in 1974. More importantly, he looks at their obituaries to see whether his backers’ decisions to support a clearly unhinged and corrupt politician were remembered. According to Goodman, not only was it mentioned in these long-deceased officials’ obituaries, but it was the defining moment of their careers. Reading some of obituary headlines, you begin to get the scope.

“Former Rep. Joseph Maraziti, 78, Defender of Nixon on Watergate”

“Wiley Mayne; House GOP Member Who Voted Not to Impeach Nixon”

“Sandman, Nixon Supporter, Dies”

“Charles Wiggins, 72, Dies; Led Nixon’s Defense in Hearings”

Alternately, Goodman looked at the obituaries of Republican congressmen who voted in favor of impeaching Nixon. Those GOP officials’ careers were also definitively marked by their decision to break with party rank-and-file to make the right decision. 

Just Security is a U.S. national security law and policy think tank and media outlet.