Taking a glass-is-one-seventh-full view of the GOP

Taking a glass-is-one-seventh-full view of the GOP

Dana Milbank — Read time: 4 minutes

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion: Taking a glass-is-one-seventh-full view of the GOP

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Capitol Hill on Feb. 8. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Image without a caption

Columnist |

The good news: All hope is not lost for the Republican Party to recover its principles.

The bad news: Eighty-six percent of hope is lost for the Republican Party to recover its principles.

A week ago, the Republican National Committee forced GOP lawmakers into a time for choosing. Its resolution referring to the violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” which remains in force a week later, spells it out in plain language: The GOP stands with the insurrectionists of Jan. 6.

Elected Republicans have had, at this writing, a full week to condemn, criticize or distance themselves from this endorsement of violence to overturn the results of a free election. Where did they come down on this existential question for democracy?

Again, the good news first: Seven Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, directly criticized the GOP’s insurrectionist platform.

The bad news: This means (unless I’ve missed any others) 43 Senate Republicans did not. The Republican Party legitimized political violence, and 86 percent of Senate Republicans let it stand. Among House Republicans, the numbers were even worse.

I’m a glass-is-one-seventh-full type of guy, so let’s celebrate the seven Senate Republicans who stood firmly against violence this week, including the highest-ranking elected Republican official in the land. “Well, let me give you my view of what happened Jan. 6,” McConnell said. “It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”

You're following Dana Milbank‘s opinionsFollowing

He further pointed out the foolishness of Republicans siding with criminals over law enforcement: “I am a pro-police, tough-on-crime Republican, across the board.”

Yes, McConnell (Ky.) was a chief enabler of Donald Trump. And yes, he may be speaking out now to blunt the political damage. But give McConnell credit: As he did immediately after the insurrection, he said the right thing this week.

So did Republican Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska (who said Jan. 6 was “shameful mob violence to disrupt … the peaceful transfer of power”); Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (“We must not legitimize those actions which resulted in loss of life and we must learn from that horrible event.”); Mitt Romney of Utah (“Nothing could be further from the truth than to consider the attack on the seat of democracy as legitimate political discourse.”); Susan Collins of Maine (“absurd,” she said of the RNC’s position); Rick Scott of Florida (“what happened on Jan. 6 was wrong”); and John Cornyn of Texas (“not an accurate description”).

And so did Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, when he said on Feb. 4 that “President Trump is wrong” in claiming Pence could have overturned Joe Biden’s victory. “Frankly, there is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”

But this leaves the grim reality that most Republican senators (and nearly all House Republicans) looked at that RNC resolution endorsing the bloody Jan. 6 insurrection and left it unchallenged. Several — including Kevin Cramer (N.D.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), John Thune (S.D.), Todd Young (Ind.) and Bill Cassidy (La.) — offered criticism of the RNC that tiptoed around the insurrection. A few — Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas (who recanted his claim that the insurrectionists were “terrorists”) appeared to defend the RNC’s pro-insurrection position.

The rudderless House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, pretended the resolution didn’t say what it said. (Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who with Rep. Liz Cheney was censured by the RNC for serving on the House Jan. 6 committee, accurately called McCarthy “a feckless, weak, tired man.”) And Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, came to the RNC’s defense, saying it “has every right to take any action.”

Each time Trump, or in this case the Trump-occupied RNC, hits some new low, it sets off a round of speculation: Maybe this will be the time Republicans of conscience finally recoil. Yet it never happens.

Now, a new opportunity: Polls hint that Trump’s grip has loosened, that people are more inclined to identify as Republicans than as Trump voters. From what I’m told, most Senate Republicans privately agree with what McConnell and Pence have said. Both men reportedly have received favorable feedback for their bravery — again, privately. There’s no indication McConnell’s leadership position is in jeopardy, despite Trump’s regular “Old Crow” insults.

So where are the other 86 percent of Senate Republicans? Will they stand with their leader in saying a violent insurrection is not “legitimate political discourse”? Or will they once again cower? Trump claimed this week that McConnell “does not represent the views of the vast majority of [Republican] voters.” The cowardice of McConnell’s colleagues proves Trump correct.