Kevin Haag, 67, a retired landscaper from North Carolina who ascended the Capitol steps as the crowd surged forward, said he did not go inside and disapproved of those who did. Even so, he said he would never forget the sense of empowerment as he looked down over thousands of protesters. It felt so good, he said, to show people: “We are here. See us! Notice us! Pay attention!”
Now, back home after several days of reflection, Mr. Haag, an evangelical Christian, wonders whether he went too far. “Should I get down on my knees and ask for forgiveness?” he said in an interview. “I am asking myself that question.”
But the experience seemed to have only hardened the resolve of others. Couy Griffin, 47, a Republican county commissioner from New Mexico, spoke of organizing another Capitol rally soon — one that could result in “blood running out of that building” — in a video he later posted to the Facebook page of his group, Cowboys for Trump.
“At the end of the day, you mark my word, we will plant our flag on the desk of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” he said. He paused before adding, “And Donald J. Trump if it boils down to it. (Source)
Americans who are part of the reality-based community are not at war with Kevin Haag and those among Trump supporters who are like him, but they are with the Couy Griffins. The challenge is how you defeat the Griffins while at the same time winning back the Haags.
It's interesting that Griffin would seem to be open to my argument in my post the other day, "Trump the Coward". I've been picking up since then that it is a growing sentiment within the hard right that Trump betrayed them on Wednesday. Good.
It's still an open question for me whether without Trump's special "chaos charism" the collective insanity we've witnessed in the last four years is sustainable. I'm not at all sure, but it might be possible that without Trump, a nutcase like Griffin is just another ignorant idiot who can be pushed to the fringe. The question is how do we get to a condition of being 'without Trump'.
But at the same time I think we're approaching the point where law enforcement has to look at these right-wing militias as posing the same kind of threat as Isis or Al-queda. After Wednesday, it's no longer possible to think about this as the just exercise of first amendment rights. And I hope an event like this and the video we've been seeing since will make Republicans recognize that this is no longer a parade they want to get in front of.
So I'm hoping that this weekend, as they reflect on the events of the past week, heretofore Trump sycophants like Mike Pence, Lindsay Graham, and Mitch McConnell figure out that they've got more to gain and less to lose if they help the Democrats to bury Trump for good. The Trump base sees these Republican leaders now as being no better than Pelosi and Schumer, so they might as well join with them in making sure that Trump never runs for office again. That might even be an attractive prospect at this point for Cruz and Hawley, if it can be done without their public support.
They know just as clearly as Pelosi and Schumer do that Trump is a monster and that the country would be better if he is completely delegitimated with the Kevin Haags among his supporters, i.e., anybody among them who still has an ounce of sanity and decency left to work with. McConnell and Graham don't have to worry about reelection for another six years, and Pence, if he has any sense at all–which, I know, is questionable–should be made to realize that he's not the guy who is going to galvanize right-wing populism as Trump's heir–especially now that Trump has repudiated him.
So if they can get to a point where they understand that their political interests are no longer served by providing cover for Trump, they can pretend they care about the country to salvage their reputations and maybe their party by doing what they can to help bury Trump. It's in the best interests of the future of the GOP that the Kevin Haags in the party see that Trump is not who they wanted to believe he is. The Haags are persuadable.
Leave a Reply