Republicans dream of vengeance -- and dismantling the federal government

[applegrove]

THE PLUM LINE

Opinion 

Republicans dream of vengeance — and dismantling the federal government

By Paul Waldman

Columnist

August 10, 2022 at 11:25 a.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/10/trump-mar-a-lago-search-republicans-revenge/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social

"SNIP.......

That Republicans would be outraged when the FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club was no surprise. That they would refuse to even consider the possibility that their dear leader had done anything wrong was likewise predictable. But their effort to defend Trump has taken on a particularly disturbing shape.

For the honor of Trump’s sacred Palm Beach redoubt, defiled by the presence of federal agents wielding a search warrant, they demand vengeance. And their focus has quickly turned to what they will do when they next take power: whom they will punish, whom they will purge, which institutions they will tear down and how much destruction they will bring to Washington.

There’s no way to know how it will play out whenever they do regain complete control of the government, but the nearly euphoric rage coming from the right suggests they have found an excuse for something they have long desired. And the more they talk about it, the more likely they will act on it when they have the chance.

Different people on the right responded to the FBI search in somewhat different ways, but all of them pushed in the same direction. While almost no one in the GOP was willing to say, “Since we don’t know what they were looking for or what they found, perhaps we should withhold judgment,” the somewhat polite Republicans promised to haul Justice Department officials before Congress to explain exactly what led to the search and how the decision was made. Which ought to be fine with Trump critics; yes, let’s hear more about the evidence of his wrongdoing.

.......SNIP"