The Senate GOP’s Coward Caucus is infested with abetters of home-grown fascism and is poised to exonerate the goon most responsible for the rabble violence that occurred on the day that will live in infamy. But you’d think they’d at least open their ears to the protracted screams of D.C. cop Daniel Hodges.
As captured on video yesterday, during day two of the Senate impeachment trial, Hodges was doing his duty to defend the Capitol when the MAGA mob crushed him in a doorway. His screams reverberated through the Senate chamber as a number of Republican “jurors” looked away, busied themselves with busywork or doodled on legal pads.
And this is the party that purportedly champions “law and order.”
Officer Hodges’ screams highlighted the toxic hypocrisy of a GOP still in thrall to (or living in fear of) the nation’s top domestic terrorist. As we know, most Republican senators are willing to abide his most flagrant desecration of democracy – but weren’t they all on board with loving law enforcement and touting the slogan that Blue Lives Matter?
Apparently not. Not when their cultists were the ones being policed.
Apparently the GOP’s Coward Caucus is perfectly willing to overlook 140 law enforcement injuries – cops getting pummeled with their own riot shields; two cops with smashed spinal discs; two cops driven to suicide; a cop beaten to death with a fire extinguisher; a cop suffering two cracked ribs; a cop being speared with a flagpole; cops pleading for reinforcements (“We’ve lost the line! We’ve lost the line!”); a Black cop, Eugene Goodman, being chased by white thugs who yelled, “Keep running, motherfucker!”
Gee. I’d always thought that fascist fellow travelers revered people in uniform and body armor.
If memory serves, that was always Trump’s message. Back in 2016, he declared: “I am the law and order candidate. When I take the path of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country.” Ditto in 2016: “I love the police, they’re the greatest.” At a rally in 2018 he declared: “I love law enforcement – do we love law enforcement?” At a rally in 2019 he declared: “Trump loves cops! I love law enforcement. I love the cops. I love the police, all of it.” Ditto at a rally in 2020: “I love law enforcement!” Ditto at another rally in 2020: “I love law enforcement, I love the cops, I love the police!”
But, as we’ve long known, that love came with a caveat. “Law and order” was the rallying cry only when the people being policed are Black or Latino or folks who are more progressive than your average MAGA cultist. “Law and order” was Trump’s rallying cry only in cases when law enforcement aided the perpetuation of his brutish power.
When cops pushed back against Black protestors incensed about police brutality, the Trump cult was all in with “law and order.” When cops acted on the goon’s orders to teargas peaceful protestors so that the guy could hoist a Bible in front of a church, that was “law and order.” But when the cops had to face off against Trump’s rampaging Visigoths, took mass casualties in order to defend the Capitol, and screamed in agony….presto! All that reverence for blue lives suddenly got canceled.
If the Republican senators lolling around the chamber like schoolboys in detention had even a scintilla of integrity, they would acknowledge the mountain of evidence and duly conclude that Trump’s attempted coup treated the police as collateral damage. Are they still prepared to vote for exoneration – and cheapen the service, heroism, and sacrifice of officers like Daniel Hodges and Eugene Goodman?
The Irish statesman Edmund Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” But, in the present circumstance, it would be a stretch to stipulate that the Republicans in question are good. Their baseline mendacity argues against it. And if they ultimately do nothing – if they yet again side with Trump over democracy, if they choose lawlessness and disorder, if they vote to dishonor and disrespect the police – they will have abetted the spread of evil.