Blame Not Equal
To the Editor:
I personally like Judge Weber who has, overall, I feel has done a fine job as our County Judge in his first term. While we may have some philosophical differences of opinion, I applaud the work he’s done around the pandemic, questioning the purchase of the house in front of the Dan R Beck Justice Center and other areas. However, I must speak up on his falsely equating the act of tearing up a speech to an attempted insurrection of the American government.
I do agree that Trump, himself, is not solely to blame for this, but he’s been supported by a cast of enablers for four years. He’s operated for four years with impunity and without any accountability. GOP lawmakers, for fear of a negative Trump tweet and/or being primaried from their right, have failed miserably to put controls on a presidency out of control, incapable of leading, and will undoubtedly go down as the worst in American history (yes, even worse than Buchannan who arguably held that title until now). But to equate the tearing of a speech to storming of the Capitol in an attempted coup d’etat is very flawed logic.
Yes, Congress is also to blame, but blame isn’t evenly distributed across the members or parties. Democrats have been warning for four years about the threats that Trump and his cronies posed to our nation and that the Republican capitulation to Trump sets precedents that are dangerous for our Republic. While there have been Republican outliers that would not bow to the would-be-emperor (such as Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, Pat Toomey, Justin Amash, and the like), the Republican Congress has kowtowed to Trump’s whim. They refused to hold him accountable for many violations of law, norms, and precedent... especially an explicit request he made to a foreign government requesting election interference... eventually this got him impeached the first time. They capitulated to the idea this was a stolen election (may I add without any proof or evidence and having lost right at or over 70 cases in the courts). They pushed his lies and falsely led many people to believe that the free and fair election of 2020 was ‘stolen.’ It wasn’t. Trump’s ego cannot let him accept the loss. It’s a symptom of malignant narcissism of which many psychologists/ psychiatrists have ‘remotely’ diagnosed Trump has having. The GOP has enabled the behavior that led to, and by extent the outcome from, the events of this past week. It is a byproduct of a party in decline and their desire to hold on to power at any cost. It just so happens their acquiescing to Trump and his cronies has now caused the party to implode, will ultimately lead to a second impeachment, forces the GOP to vote on whether they stand with the insurrectionists or the Republic, and may lead to Congressional enablers of this insurrection (especially Sen. Cruz and Sen. Hawley) to lose their seats in Congress, such as happened in the early 1860s for 10 senators who were inciting insurrection in regard to what became the Civil War.
From the events earlier this month, there should be no daylight between Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, or Libertarian voters nor all Americans. The attempt to stop the certification of a duly elected president… an attempt to subvert the will of the people... through violent means (five people have died as a result) is inexcusable, unacceptable, and against our American values and that anyone supporting, participating, or inciting such violence (as the President did), should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Participation in the events earlier this month were not made by Democrats. Inciting the attempted insurrection was not made by Democrats. Coordination of the events were not made by Democrats. Attempting to spread the blame around to Democrats and others is a fallacy of logic and Judge Weber should be more visible in levying proper responsibility for the events at the Capitol.
Eric Green
La Grange