There is so much happening in the political spectrum that it’s tough for anybody to have the emotional bandwidth to process it all. On any given day, the GOP-led House is closer to a government shutdown than ever, while news breaks in one or more of Donald Trump’s legal trials, while the GOP primary limps along to its next destination, minus one or two compatriots who have come to their senses and decided to default to Trump. And of course we have our share of the obligatory doom scrolling about Joe Biden’s age and how the American electorate is going to return a bumbling oaf to office so that he can eliminate democracy and institute fascism in this country, while ruling until he’s carried out of the Oval Office feet first.
But if you can put all that aside for just a moment, do so and watch Texas Rep. Chip Roy take all of his Republican colleagues to task. I’m halfway waiting for him to reach under the podium, take out a chainsaw, and start chasing folks around the chamber. Maybe next session?
I got nothin, bro. https://t.co/QxxNH2jEds
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) November 15, 2023
Here’s Twitter’s reaction and you’re going to nod your head at each one of these.
My sentiments lie with the first tweeter, here. I saw this and said, “Oh my God, this is wonderful! Biden’s going to flip when he sees this.” Roy just gave us the farm. Of course, we will hear no end of the usual rebuttal that legacy media feels it needs to do in order to maintain the illusion of a horse race. And don’t get me wrong. Let me emphatically state, I am NOT saying we should be complacent. My feeling is that Democrats should always campaign like we’re 30 points down and drive out the vote like there’s no tomorrow. Then and only then can we see the results we want not only in the White House but with respect to the down ballot. We need to get as many Republicans out of office as possible — and it looks like Congressman Roy is just a tad worried about that.
Or, maybe this has come back to haunt him.
Top row, center, Ron.
I'm afraid the strain was more than he could bear. pic.twitter.com/GoVY2GMExn
— Critical Bill76 (@CriticalBill76) November 15, 2023
Let’s face it, the GOP was going to ride the Trump train wherever it went. It was their best, and only, shot. Now, Roy is looking at the impact of what he personally did, and he wasn’t alone. At least that’s my take on it. I think that Roy is finally having what I’ll call a “Nuremberg Trials” moment.
I’m referring to the movie Judgement At Nuremberg. In the movie, Burt Lancaster plays a German judge and Spencer Tracy plays the American prosecutor who conducts the trials at Nuremberg. Lancaster comes to respect Tracy in the course of the proceedings. He has a man to man talk with him afterwards. He says, “You have to believe me. We never thought it would get where it got to.” And the Tracy character replies, “It got there, Judge Janning, the first time you pronounced a man guilty that you knew to be innocent.” Lancaster replies with the best reaction shot that I have ever seen in cinema, as the moral gravity of what he has done finally sinks in, soul deep.
I would say that Chip Roy is having a Nuremberg Trials moment. He’s finally realizing that it got to where it got — and where it is right now — the first time a Republican member of congress voted not to impeach (or remove) Donald Trump when they knew he was guilty as hell of what he was charged with.
It got there the minute any Republican member of Congress decided to put party above country and attempt to keep the mad dog mango man in the White House. And for this, there is now going to come a price. And that price may be a crippled GOP for the next ten, fifteen years. It’s hard to specify.
I think what’s going on with Roy right now, today, is that he’s trying to rally the troops to some kind of accountability, but he’s way too late for that. The GOP had their chance at accountability. They had the chance to be public servants and do the job that they were elected to do, which was uphold the Constitution.
Other legislatures before them had the same chance. Many of you were there when the 93rd Congress of the United States deliberated and thereafter informed Richard Nixon that he had to resign. Barry Goldwater, then the senior member of the Senate in charge of such duties, walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to deliver that message to the then-president. That’s how the Constitution was intended to work and that’s how they did it in the 70’s.
But in the years 2016 and beyond, something has happened. The guardrails have slipped off. The government doesn’t work the way it should. And the Republican party owns this dysfunction. This is their doing.
When Trump’s first impeachment happened, Adam Schiff opined, “the system is broken.” Indeed it was, and is, if a man like Trump can do what he did and get where he got.
And he’s still not gone. Now we have constitutional scholars debating whether the 14th Amendment can keep him off the ballot. Every day that goes by there is yet another news story where Trump is touting fascism, threatening the doom of his enemies and parroting Adolf Hitler.
I’m glad that Chip Roy is having some kind of an epiphany. About damn time. I think it’s too little, too late, but I do thank him profusely for his clarity and for the tremendous ad he just handed the Democratic party. I look forward to seeing it blast away on screens everywhere in America in 2024.
The Democrats need to wake up and realize this is a zero sum game they must win. I’m sure every solider that landed on Normandy knew it was ALL OR NOTHING. As far as I knew them, my five uncles never killed anyone prior to going to WW2. They did what they had to do. They came home alive but not undamaged by the ugliness and brutality of war. They and the other brave soliders did save our collective arses. The Democrats need to operate as if they are in a burning building. This is no time for timidity. Trump is a nazi, although he probably knows nothing about the rise of fascism, or what the end result was in Germany, or will be here. One result is some real patriots will start shooting THESE sons of a bitches. The breying asses talk tough, but run like bitches when the sh*t goes down…right Hawley? Trump and his gop stay puff marshmallows in congress may tell us to eat cake, like the royalty in France, but they’d be wise to remember what happened to those pampered aholes when the damn broke.
Sonny…if history has taught us anything…it’s that anyone can be killed. Michael Corleone
By the way morons…those AR-15 pins aren’t loaded nor will they stop a bullet. Neither will the Bible, whether held upside down or right side up.
Have you ever been to Normandy Scott? I have. Out of body experience. You just sit there on any of the landing beaches and stare out and visualize what happenned those decades ago and unless you’re a monster, it DOES move you! I have been to 4 of the beaches since 1984, and each time it moves me powerfully to sit on a german pillbox and just look out and imagine that day 80 years ago. Do it Scott. Even at our age, it will affect you, my friend.
chippy roy is my congress person. he is a dick. I let him know what I think on a regular basis. Doesn’t seem to make a difference. He got a big time gerry mander boost in the last reallocation so he is free to spew whatever garbage he wants because he has so many counties of red necks backing him to do as much damage as he can. He clearly only cares about about half of his constituents. chippy roy is a scumbag.
I think your Nuremberg trials analogy gives Chip Roy much more credit than he deserves. I think he’s just having a temper tantrum because the GOP hasn’t shut down the government like his lord and master, the Mango Mussolini, wants it to do.