The political party of personal responsibility would like you to know that it takes no responsibility.
Not for any of it.
In fact, today’s Republicans would like to take it one step further. Not only is nothing that happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 their fault, or Donald Trump’s fault, it’s actually my fault. And your fault. And your neighbors’ fault. Hell, it’s everyone’s fault.
Those are, quite literally, almost the exact words that came out of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s mouth this week in an interview with Greta Van Susteren.
“Everybody across this country has some responsibility,” he said. “What do we write on our social media? What do we say to one another? How do we disagree and still not be agreeable, even when it comes to opinions? As a whole nation, I think we should take this moment in time to find how we can correct ourselves.”
Excuse me?
We correct ourselves by holding the people accountable who incited the insurrection that led to five deaths, including that of a police officer. We correct ourselves by convicting Donald Trump and making sure he is never allowed to run for political office again.
We correct ourselves by expelling ringleaders like Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz from the U.S. Senate. We correct ourselves by pressuring corporations to stop donating to the 147 Republicans, including Kevin McCarthy, who voted to overturn the election hours after the violent mob left the premises. We correct ourselves by enforcing libel and slander statutes against agents of propaganda, so they pay stiff penalties for their prevarications.
McCarthy’s comments are just the latest in a string of actions by the current crop of Congressional Republicans that strain comprehension.
Conspiracy-theory believing Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene gave a nationally televised speech on the House floor wearing a mask that said, “censored.” Not to be outdone, Hawley wrote an editorial claiming that he is being, “muzzled.” He tweeted the piece out to his more than half-million followers after it ran in the New York Post, located in the nation’s No. 1 media market, and has been making numerous TV appearances in an attempt to obfuscate his role in stoking the coup attempt.
It doesn’t seem Greene or Hawley are being censored or muzzled at all. We are all hearing their delusional message loud and clear.
Now, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman has announced he will not run for reelection and has blamed, “partisan deadlock.” But who has been responsible for that? Which has been the party of intransigence? Over the last two years, the Democrat-led House of Representatives passed multiple pieces of legislation, and the Republican-led Senate refused to put almost any of it up for a vote.
Portman has done nothing to persuade Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to act in a bipartisan way. He never stood up to Donald Trump’s shenanigans. He just went along for the ride. Now, just like in the case of Kevin McCarthy, he says it’s everyone’s fault.
Do any of these people own a mirror?
How can there ever be unity in this country when the party of extremist militias, conspiracy theorists, insurrectionists, propagandists and wannabe autocrats never takes any responsibility for what they have wrought? McCarthy’s comments, in which he blames everyone for the Jan. 6 insurrection, are just another way of saying there are very fine people on both sides.
There aren’t. There are those of us who are fighting for what’s right, there are seditionists and there are cowards. Americans are taught from a young age to own up to their mistakes, learn from them and take their medicine when dealing with the repercussions.
It’s time for Republicans to do the same.