It is extremist to claim, in the complete absence of evidence, that the election was stolen.
It is extremist to demand that millions of legal, valid ballots be tossed out by the courts, by state legislators, by Congress or the vice president. It is extremist to claim that those who upheld the election, who abided by the word, letter and spirit of the Constitution, are somehow enemies of the Constitution.
It is extremist to make common cause with people who would take the law into their own hands, who would inflict vigilante mob violence on our elected officials and government. And it is downright obscene to do so in the name of preserving that same Constitution.
It is extremist to acquit the man who set all that in motion, who tried to interfere directly in the peaceful transfer of power, to transform democracy into dictatorship.
It is extremist to then attack those seven Republican senators and ten Republican House members who dared to buck their party, who chose truth and the Constitution over blind loyalty to the man whom I hope will always be the most terrible president in American history, because if we get one worse than Donald Trump the republic may not survive it.
The GOP is not a moderate party attempting to purge its extremist elements and return to the mainstream. For the foreseeable future, it is an extremist party that even now is attempting to hunt down and purge its moderate elements, and by doing so become even more extreme.
In fact, we should face the fact that extremism has become central to the identity of what by habit we incorrectly call “conservatism.” They now define themselves by the chasm that separates them from the mainstream, and extremism is the lever that they use to create that chasm. They don’t fear being “canceled;” they court it, they demand it, and will do and say whatever it takes to earn that status.
Within the party, it is moderation, not extremism, that is viewed with suspicion. It is moderation that must be hunted down and forced to either recant or be evicted, and to even acknowledge extremism as a danger is to side with the media, to admit that yes, we may have gone too far and that the liberals might have a point.
How can you get to “yes” with a movement whose entire identity is wrapped up in the joy of screaming “no?” Read more