Here’s what we do with them next.
Thomas Friedman wrote a great column yesterday, in the hours before the insurrection. He argued that the more than 100 Congressional Republicans who refused to certify the election — in effect refusing to honor nothing less than American democracy — “should carry the title ‘coup plotter’ forever.”
I agree. Wednesday was (thankfully) an unsuccessful coup d’etat. The rioters who sieged the Capitol were not organized enough or (again, thank God) smart enough to find a way to remain there through the night, syncing their forces with the president who instigated their insurrection, a president who could have then called on the military to defend his new authoritarian rule. That’s how coups happen. They also happen in what was attempted in Congress Wednesday, when those Congressional Republicans Friedman wanted to Scarlet Letter took to the House and Senate floors and said millions of legitimate votes should be discarded. Why? Because of baseless allegations President Trump has repeated for months, and which these Congressional Republicans have parroted for just as long, but to even more cynical ends. They hope that by drafting off of Trump’s populist rage they might steal some of his followers for themselves, and empower their future political campaigns.
