Louisiana Voice

As I have mentioned before, I am a recovering Repugnantcan. I registered the same day that Gov. Edwin Edwards signed into law the bill creating the single primary system in Louisiana back in the mid-1970s and stayed with the party until midway through Bobby Jihad’s first term – hey, even newborn puppies have to be given the opportunity to open their eyes.

About the same time that I was transitioning, Caroline Fayard, a former (unsuccessful) candidate for Louisiana lieutenant governor came under fire when she made the observation that Republicans “EAT THEIR YOUNG.”

That wasn’t exactly an original expression. An earlier version said, “Old people vote and Republicans eat their young.”

But since Fayard first uttered those words, the expression has morphed into “Republicans eat their own,” with the most recent case in point being Liz Cheney, stripped of her House leadership position because she had the audacity to proclaim that Donald Trump actually lost the 2020 election.

One writer recently wrote that “For eight years, they tried to get a Cheney for lying. Finally, they got one for telling the truth.”

Regardless where or when the expression originated, the claim has never been in sharper focus than it is today as Repugnantcans scramble to tighten voter restrictions, loosen gun-toting restrictions and generally rewrite history even as the images of carnage remain fresh in our minds.

Elected officials like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley Ron Johnson, Devin Nunes, Steve Scalise, Clay Higgins, Jim Jordan and John N. Kennedy would have us believe the unbridled riots of Jan. 6 were something other than what we witnessed in horror that day.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) says he never felt threatened by the mob. Our own Sen. Kennedy, while condemning the violence instigated by Trump, nevertheless joined with five other senators in voting to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona.

Scalise, being the self-serving weasel he is, simply kept silent on Trump’s role in inciting the rioters to storm the Capitol, taking what he felt was the safe route to keeping his Minority Whip position rather than showing true leadership by holding Trump accountable.

Gaetz, along with such reliable chroniclers of truth Laura Ingraham and Sarah Palin, tried to tell us the rioters were actually members of Antifa or Black Lives Matter.

And when five of our Six Repugnantcans voted to challenge the election results, talk show host, aka Mouth of the South Moon Griffon said they “did the right thing.”

What’s really puzzling is that the Repugnantcans have long identified themselves as the anti-communist stalwarts, yet they are now perfectly willing to look the other way in the face of hard evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election that put Trump in office.

I was repeatedly accused of something called TDS during the presidential campaign last year. TDS is “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” and for some reason the fanatics who supported the Tangerine Toddler unquestionably and unconditionally were the ones accusing those who questioned his actions of suffering from the ailment.

It would seem to me that one who pledges absolute fealty to a demagogue would be the one who suffers from TDS, but that’s just me.

But the top prize for TDS has to go to U.S. Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Georgia).

He tops anything ever said by Clay Higgins, John Kennedy or Ron Johnson – and that’s saying a lot.

A story in yesterday’s Washington Post quotes Clyde as downplaying the events of Jan. 6 as “acts of vandalism” and suggested it was a “boldfaced lie” to call what happened that day an “insurrection.”

I’m sorry, congressman, but I can’t make the mental stretch necessary to say that the killing of a Capitol police officer was a simple “act of vandalism.”

But Clyde wasn’t finished.

“Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes, taking videos, pictures,” the Post quoted Clyde as saying. “You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

Orderly fashion? Staying between the stanchions and ropes? Normal tourist visit? What the hell have you been smoking, Congressman? Which TV footage were you watching? The one I was watching (in real time, by the way) didn’t look anything like a “normal tourist visit.”

And then there is Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona), who the same Post article said accused the Justice Department of “harassing peaceful patriots” for its attempts to identify and arrest those who stormed the Capitol that day. “Outright propaganda and lies are being used to unleash the national security state against law-abiding U.S. citizens, especially Trump voters,” Gosar said. “The FBI is fishing through homes of veterans and citizens with no criminal records and restricting the liberties of individuals that have never been accused of a crime.”

And all this time, I thought the Repugnantcans were in favor of law enforcement and the punishment of criminals.

Finally, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) regurgitated the Antifa claim. He supported his view by opining that the attack was premeditated and so could not have been incited by Trump. Never mind the indisputable fact that Trump had literally SPENT WEEKS whipping supporters into a collective froth with his false claims of fraud, all capped off by his call to march on the Capitol.

Sorry, Repugs, you can’t change history. Sen. Patrick Moynihan once famously said, “You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.”

But Gloria Steinem may have said it best when she said, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

And the sad truth is Repugnantcans do, in fact, eat their own.

Just ask Liz Cheney.