A Moment of Clarity by Geoff Carter « The Pen in Hand Blog

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

In a surprise move last week, the Republican Party took a moral stand. Despite their recent tendencies to kowtow, cave, and kiss ex-President Trump’s posterior, the House of Representative Republicans finally decided to demonstrate that they do know right from wrong by expelling disgraced Republican Congressman George Santos. Of course, to recognize that Mr. Santos is a liar, a huckster, a thief, and fraud was hardly an act of rocket science. Few things could be more obvious.

The House Ethics Committee began an investigation of Mr. Santos last March and found him guilty of violating campaign disclosures and used campaign funds for personal purposes. And, then last May, the U.S. attorney’s office of the Eastern District of New York indicted him for lying to Congress, stealing from his own campaign fund, and defrauding donors. (NPR).

Most obviously, George Santos is a bold-faced and accomplished liar. He’s lied about his Jewish ancestry, his education, and working at a top Wall Street firm. He allegedly lied in order to receive more than $24,000 in unemployment benefits. He lied about founding an animal charity and pocketed funds raised by that entity. He allegedly swindled a veteran, promising to raise money so his dog could undergo life-saving surgery, but the money never got past George Santos and the dog died. He lied about his mother dying during the 9/11 attacks and his grandmother being a Holocaust victim. And—believe it or not—his lies get even weirder. (New York Intelligencer)

So, this man, an obvious embarrassment to the vaunted institution of the House of Representatives, became only the fifth member in history be expelled from Congress. Getting rid of this creature seems to be a no-brainer, but one can never discount the capacity of the Republican Party to bury their heads in the sand, engage in fervent denial, practice incoherent doublespeak, or kiss the great orange posterior. This was a monumental moment for the Party. Like an alcoholic who has that sudden revelatory moment of clarity, the GOP has started began a long, sure-to-be arduous road to recovery. And they do have a lot to make up for.

Last January, after Republicans squeaked out a narrow majority in the House (including the aforementioned Mr. Santos), the GOP had a very difficult time electing a speaker—usually a no-brainer. The Freedom Caucus, the extreme right-wing segment of the party, refused to vote for front-runner Kevin McCarthy unless they were granted certain concessions including border security, spending limits, and a balanced budget. Part of the final deal was that a single member of the House could initiate the process to oust the Speaker. McCarthy was voted in, only to be ousted six months later. It took the House another embarrassingly long time to find yet another new Speaker. Like a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving, it seemed incoherent, rambling, and clueless.

Last summer, Representative Lauren Boebert, sort of a one-woman clown car in her own right, was caught on video at a traveling Broadway production of Beetlejuice in Denver vaping, standing and singing along loudly with the show, disturbing her neighbors, and groping—as well as being groped by—her date. While not caught lying or defrauding anyone, her behavior was inappropriate for a seventh grader, let alone a government official.

There’s more, like allegations of Matt Gaetz’s dalliances with underage girls or one representative offering to fight the president of the Teamsters’ Union during a Congressional Hearing. Senator Lindsey Graham has been caught flipping on so many issues—including his allegiance to Trump or his feelings about the January 6^th riots—that he looks like a landed trout.

But the GOP did have a moment of clarity. They expelled George Santos, one of their own members. The question is whether they will continue to do the right thing on their road to recovery. What will they see when they look in the mirror tomorrow? A party willing to do anything to hang onto the reins of power, or a governing body ready, willing, and able to defend the Constitution, promote the public welfare, establish justice, and insure domestic tranquility?

The expulsion of George Santos is only a baby step on the road to recovery. After all, with his lying, his scheming to defraud his donors, his flaunting of the law, and his contempt for the people he supposedly serves, George Santos resembles no one more than former president and proud owner of ninety-one criminal indictments, Donald J. Trump, whose alleged transgressions against the people of the United States of America have been well-documented. A Georgia grand jury has indicted him of conspiring to interfere with the 2020 presidential election. The House January 6^thCommittee compiled enormous amounts of evidence implicating Mr. Trump of inciting the Capitol riots. Then there’s Stormy Daniels, the Mar-a-Lago documents scandal, and more. George Santos is a pale imitation of the real thing.

The courts are slowly grinding away in their efforts to wreak justice upon the disgraced former president. But oddly—and frighteningly, despite all the media coverage of his legal woes, Trump is maintaining a commanding lead in the polls in his run to be the 2024 Republican presidential candidate.

Lincoln once said, “You could fool all people some of the time, all some people all of the time, but you can never fool all the people all the time.” Mr. Trump is doing a masterful job at fooling some of the people—his people—all the time. As he once stated during his 2016 presidential campaign, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” (NPR). The sad thing is that he’s probably right. He’s pretty much done every despicable thing up to that point and is leading his closest contender by over forty points.

If Republican voters aren’t discerning enough to see what Mr. Trump really is and are willing to vote him back into office, then it must be up to the GOP to police their own ranks. They should first let Republican voters know that Donald Trump does not uphold traditional Republican values, or traditional American values for that matter. He has allegedly compromised national security by making off with classified documents. He has used the office of the presidency for personal gain (in blatant violation of the emoluments clause). He has allied himself with some of the authoritarian dictators on the planet. And finally, he allegedly conspired to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. None of these actions reflect Republican values—or any values except those of the narcissistic autocrat. And now he wants to be president again.

The Republican Party can stop this. They’ve already taken the first step. They expelled George Santos, sort of a Trump mini-me. They can continue to do the right thing and remove Donald J. Trump from the Republican ballot. It’s true that he would probably run as an independent and skim off enough votes to derail a Republican candidate, but, for the good of the country and its people, the GOP needs to take one for the team.

The Republicans used to be able to do the right thing, and showed, with the expulsion of mini-me George Santos, they still know a bad egg when they see one. It’s time to for them to show the courage to release themselves from the burden they’ve been carrying for almost eight years. They need to remove the one of the single greatest dangers our country has ever faced. All they need is the courage and the moral clarity to take that step.