Spare Us From the Vichy Republicans (remember Bob Livingston?)

[japple]

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/11/02/spare-us-vichy-republicans

Item: Bob Livingston. Remember him? When last seen by the wider public in the waning, innocent years of the 20th century, he was the newly minted designee to succeed Newt Gingrich as Republican Speaker of the House.

But he abruptly resigned after it was revealed (thanks to the public service of Larry Flynt) that he had indulged in extramarital affairs. This was something of an inconvenience, given that he was tapped to lead the charge of the light brigade against incumbent president Bill Clinton, impeaching the latter because of his shocking dalliances outside matrimonial bonds.

Unlike you or me in similar circumstances, Livingston, a cog in the great clockwork of Republican influence-peddling, landed on his feet. Founding a lobbying shop modestly named the Livingston Group, he developed a brisk business of green-washing dictators (such as Muammar al-Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak), fighting against formal recognition of the Turkish genocide of Armenians in World War I, and other worthy causes of clients with money.

Who could have imagined that Bob Livingston would link up with Giuliani and Associates to press the case that the United States needed to dump our career diplomatic personnel who actually knew something about Ukraine in favor of more transactional go-getters who would vigorously press the case that Kiev needed to get on board the Trump reelection campaign?

[Garrett78]

1. Gingrich's extramarital affairs didn't keep him from leading the anti-Clinton brigade. Anyway...

...while I don't have much use for Mike Lofgren, he's right about how crazy the GOP has become. To think there are "many really good Republicans" (as one Dem recently declared) or that we can compromise with those not acting in good faith is naive at best and delusional at worst. Of course, like many Never Trumpers, Lofgren seems to be in denial about how rotten the pre-Gingrich GOP was, though he does acknowledge that he had been naive. 50+ years of increasingly cruel and unhinged policy and rhetoric set the stage for this:

What are we to make of all this? The notion, beloved by the press, that Trump holds Republicans in a kind of thrall, like the Klingons’ tractor beam, does not withstand scrutiny, because there is no evidence that the GOP will resume normal behavior once the beam is switched off. They have been getting crazier and crazier for years, which is why I departed Capitol Hill in 2011 to spread the news to all who would listen.

Republicans have now become seriously deranged, and even more cult-like. Louie Gohmert, once a comical outlier, but now the heart and soul of his party, is invoking civil war as a remedy to the potential impeachment of his beloved Führer. And for sheer cringe-inducing weirdness, nothing matches the GOP’s fixation with abortion once they achieve power, which has now reached an almost unbelievable stage of sick obsession in Missouri. Today’s GOP has become a creepy mashup of grade B totalitarianism and perverted Freudian manias disguised as family values.

Once, I called them an apocalyptic cult, which they were and are. But in those relatively naïve days, even I underestimated their growing appetite for crime, betrayal, and certifiable lunacy.