The White Supremacist Party

96%. 

A fantastic score if you're taking an exam. A terrifying score if you're looking at what percentage of the Republican Party supports White supremacy. 

And yet, with only 10 out of 201 members agreeing with the Democratic Party on Wednesday and admitting that Donald Trump was at fault for his failed January 6th insurrection attempt, the Republican Party has once again declared fealty to Donald Trump and Trumpism. Those that claimed they were too afraid to vote against Donald Trump out of fear for their lives or their family's lives are sadly reinforcing Democrats' point: Trump's incendiary words have the ability to put people's lives in danger. Rather than standing up for democracy, these 201 representatives cowered to a soon-to-be broke businessman from Queens and said that an insurrection wasn't a deal breaker as long as they got their tax cuts and judges. Their impeachment vote, now recorded in the history books, proved them to be both friends of Trump as well as enemies of democracy.

This transition from the party of small government to the party of White supremacy did not happen overnight nor did it happen in a vacuum. The GOP has been dramatically shifting to the right over the past half-century as a result of opposition to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Knowing that Democrats had secured the support of communities of color for the foreseeable future, the GOP openly embraced a strategy to merge the religious right with the racist right in not-so-subtle opposition to the growing diversity of the Democratic Party. Throughout the Reagan Administration, we began to hear the growing dog whistles about people of color as "welfare queens" and we saw complete and utter dismissal of the AIDS epidemic. At the same time, we saw Reagan begin to court the Evangelical faith community, a community rooted in maintaining the White, patriarchal system that had been central to their faith for a thousand years. This was a community that also saw people of color's growing political power as a threat to their way of life and so they were perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to the growing racism that was emerging in the Republican Party. 

The theme of the 1990's for the Republican Party was power and specifically, how to regain power from a popular and successful southern Democratic president who was able to bring together a vibrant coalition of supporters. The response to Bill Clinton's successful first term was a political hatchet job to impeach the president for his sexual indiscretions. As power hungry as that move was, it was not until the 2000 election where we saw what lengths the Republican Party would go to cement power at the highest levels. By bringing in an army of lawyers and stopping a lawful count of votes, Republicans in 2000 successfully hijacked the election, giving way to eight years of Republican rule that in many ways planted the seeds for Donald Trump. With Dick Cheney essentially running point, the George W. Bush administration began to consolidate power of the Executive Branch and also of the Judiciary Branch as well. With 5 conservative members including Justices Roberts and Alito added during the term, Republicans now had the ability to shift the court right on social justice issues like voting rights for a generation to come. Had it not been for the 2008 economic crash, Republicans might very well have been able to add 2 new judges into the mix during what would become Barack Obama's first term. 

And it was Obama's first term that would officially break the Republican Party. Rather than working on bipartisan solutions for a global economic crisis, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and the entire party actively worked to undermine Obama at each and every turn. They could not bear the sight of the country's first Black president being successful. There was not a single Republican who supported the Recovery Act or the Affordable Care Act. This strategy was designed to simultaneously hurt both Barack Obama and the American people at the same time. While Obama worked tirelessly behind the scenes to address the economic crisis, a recalcitrant Republican Party fought him and each and every turn, forcing him to use up his accrued political goodwill against a backdrop of a weary and tired American public. After a robust first two years, Obama and Democrats lost 60 House seats in 2010, forcing his administration to dramatically scale back the type of legislation that would greatly behoove the American people. Combined with a GOP Senate takeover in 2014 and Obama would be largely forced to govern via Executive Action, thereby eliciting cries of "Tyrant!" from a disapproving Republican Party. By the time he left office in 2016, Barack Obama had earned each and every gray hair on his head from forcefully battling the obstructionist Republican Party for eight whole years.

Once we reached 2016, the Republicans would do anything to get back into power and to undermine Barack Obama's legacy. As Donald Trump of all people emerged as the party's nominee, Republicans went all in on a man who was a thrice-divorced adulterer and a former pro-life Democrat. A man who had zero governing experience. A man who hadn't set foot in church once in the past two decades. A man who throughout the campaign insulted Mexicans, Gold Star families, John McCain, and who admitted to sexual assault on tape. Donald Trump's ideas on governing were not a secret. At the Republican convention, Trump proudly proclaimed, "I alone can fix it." He encouraged violence against those that disrupted his rallies. He claimed he was more knowledgeable than the generals he would be entrusted to command. Despite all this, Donald Trump had the overwhelming support of the Republican Party and their voters. Despite a last minute plea by Mitt Romney, Trump won the primary handily to become the nominee and the entire party willfully fell into line.

This was the beginning of the coalescence around America's Chief White Nationalist. Former rivals like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio got on board. Despite being insulted by him at a debate, Hugh Hewitt began drinking the Trump Kool-Aid. Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, Tucker Carlson, and Fox News were all in. Sheldon Adelson began cashing checks left and right for Trump. Elected officials began publicly endorsing Trump and introducing him at his rallies. And, of course, Russia saw in Trump a perfect potential ally as someone who was already exposed for his Russian money laundering and his 2014 Miss Universe contest in Russia. By engaging in a cyberterrorist attack that would infiltrate American social media, Russia successfully conned tens of millions of conservative voters to vote for Trump and for tens of thousands of undecideds and far-leftists to vote against Hillary Clinton. Trump, with an open infatuation for Vladimir Putin, was more than giddy to accept the help of someone he saw as a potential business partner. Because as we all know, Trump only gets into business with someone when he believes he can get something of value in return. 

When the results came in on election night, Trump was despondent. He knew he was now at the mercy of Russia and Vladimir Putin. He knew what he had done, legally and illegally, to win the election. But his party was elated. They had regained power in all 3 branches of government. It didn't matter that they had elected a living, breathing dumpster fire, they now had unchecked power to inject their agenda onto the American people. As we saw, this agenda involved the very premise of White nationalism: to create a society where White men were in the dominant position of power. Donald Trump may have been the figurehead behind this movement but he was supported in his efforts by an entire political party. Attorney General Jeff Sessions willingly put refugee children in cages. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos willing stripped away protections for people of color. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson do this day has no idea what his job description entails. Each and every one of Trump's press secretaries dismissed his and his administration's blatant racist policies. All of these people saw Trump's White nationalism and they did everything they could to amplify it. 

And Trump's White nationalism was so enticing that Republicans would literally kill their own citizens to appease him. As we saw throughout the pandemic, Republican governors refuse to take proper safety measures to protect their citizens in order to remain in Trump's good graces. Governors in Florida, Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Arizona all tried to one-up each other by being the biggest Trump sycophant. Meanwhile, their citizens, especially their citizens of color, were dying in record numbers all because the governors didn't want to appear "weak" in the eyes of the president of the United States. Rather than listening to scientists and following proper practices, these governors instead chose to sacrifice the health of their citizens for political gain. Had we been in a different era, we might have very well said that these governors were involved in creating "death panels" for their very own citizens. 

Since Trump saw this appeasement over the course of 4 years, he simply assumed it would continue to exist beyond his first term. That is why he simply couldn't believe he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Trump's own malignant narcissism as well as having seen an entire political party bend the knee gave Trump the false impression that he would easily win a second term. He couldn't understand how and why people of color would actually vote against him. He assumed they, like everyone in his obit, loved him and wanted him to win. When that clearly didn't happen, Trump engaged in a two month spree that will go down in infamy for his efforts to discredit an American election and to incite an insurrection to overturn the will of the American people. Nobody close to Trump tried to stop him as he attacked the voting results in areas of color like Detroit, Philadelphia, and Georgia. Republicans by and large refused to dismiss his false claims. And his supporters, having drank the QAnon tea for over 4 years were more than happy to join Trump in admitting that there was no legal way that their lord and savior could possibly lose an election. They've not merely gone down the rabbit hole, they now think Wonderland is real and America is make-believe. 

All of this brings us to Wednesday. With Wednesday's vote, we saw 201 Republican members of Congress refuse to condemn Donald Trump for inciting the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. Many of the 201 members are the children of those Republicans who first broke away after the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Others are those straight from QAnon message boards. Others still are those who somehow believe what Trump did was not impeachable, that it was somehow a "perfect" insurrection where Trump did nothing wrong. Whatever their reasons for voting, one thing became painfully clear: Trump and GOP White nationalism is not something that will vanish overnight. If 96% of a political party sees nothing wrong with an armed insurrection against the Capitol to disenfranchise millions of voters of color and overturn an election then there are no lengths that party won't go to to stay in power.

And that is why White supremacy will be a staple of the Republican Party for years to come.