The Witness Chronicles, September 13, 2024

The Trump debate effect

Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash

The Mysterious Silence of the Republicans

Have they realized that doubling down is doubling their troubles?

As expected, the media are questioning every Republican they can find about their reaction to Trump’s debate meltdown. Some of those on the far right are trying to amplify some of the crazier statements the candidate made, including the ‘immigrants eating pets’ thing and the ‘Democrats kill babies’ thing.

And universally it is backfiring on them and only serving to keep reminding the voting public just how bad things were on Tuesday night. But many have decided to make no statement, avoiding the topic, changing the conversation, or simply walking away from reporters.

This looks like a survival instinct, as many are realizing they risk going down with the ship under its demented pirate captain. They now know they cannot control him at all, nor can they predict what he will say or do.

Seems a little late to have that lightbulb go off guys. The rest of us have been watching this thing for years and been seriously wondering about the viability of the Republican Party under the spell of Trump. The question is, are they waking up and realizing the situation they are in and that they have put the country in?

I’m probably giving them too much credit here for self-awareness suddenly showing up among the semi-sane members of the cult. But it appears that, for some, they are realizing what four more years under this man would bring.

If his decline is this bad now, what will it look like a year or two from now? And if he is able to activate the anti-democratic policies his advisors have laid out in excruciating detail in their Project 2025 plan, what will happen to them?

Let’s face it, being an elected official in the federal government is a pretty cushy job. You’re guaranteed a lifetime of perks even if you only last a couple of years in office. And everywhere you go you are treated as a special person and will be for the rest of your life.

And the power. Power is an addictive drug along with its companion, greed. And both of those are within reach if you get those votes. Maybe we are seeing a kind of withdrawal symptom activated by Trump’s performance in front of 67 million voters, many more than watched the Biden catastrophe in the first debate.

That’s a lot of voters and a lot of them were regular Republicans who were probably shocked by how low Trump would go and how quickly he went there. So it’s no wonder Republicans are trying to disassociate themselves from the man.

The mature and right thing to do would be to clearly state their fears about his leadership ability and work to defeat him, as diehard conservatives like the Cheneys have chosen to do. It’s hard for me, a lifelong Democrat, to say good things about Dick Cheney but he did the right thing, as did his daughter with the January Sixth hearings.

It took big cojones for both of them to break away from the dogma in favor of the Democracy. They are smart enough to know that something like Project 2025 would have hugely negative effects for their party too. Dictators don’t share power with anyone.

But, unlike the Cheneys and others, many so called leaders in the party are responding by just pretending Tuesday’s debacle didn’t happen and going along with their lalala political lives. Nothing to see here, move along.

It’s as if Trump turned a number of his party members into zombies, seemingly overnight, mindless undead wandering by the press in groaning silence. Or, more likely, collective shock.

Imagine waking up and realizing the man you have empowered is insane and that it’s too late to do anything about it? When Biden did the right thing and dropped out, it was just in time. Kamala Harris and her party recovered from their shell shock and unified with just enough time to mount a campaign against a monster and his zombie army.

But some of those zombies appear to be waking up and realizing what they have done. But they are also realizing they do not have the will or the time to change things.

Hopefully voters are waking up while we still have time.

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