Truth or Consequences

By Jay Nordlinger

Thursday, August 04, 2022

 

That was a game show, of yore: Truth or Consequences. But there is such a thing as truth and consequences: Tell the truth, and you will face the music.

 

If you’re a Republican and refuse to go along with the Trumpian claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — there is music.

 

After the assault on Congress, ten Republicans voted to impeach President Trump. Trump and his people have pledged to chase them all out. Will even one of the ten return to Congress for the next term? We’ll see.

Evidently, some refer to these congressmen as “the traitorous ten.” Traitorous to what, or whom? Trump? The GOP? MAGA? I would call them more like the faithful ten: faithful to the Constitution and to their oath of office.

 

Peter Meijer, of Michigan, was one of the ten. He had just entered Congress (having been elected in November 2020). And virtually his first act was to vote to impeach a president of his own party. That wasn’t easy.

 

Nor had it been easy to vote to certify the election. Here is an excerpt from a piece by Tim Alberta on Meijer:

 

On the House floor, moments before the vote, Meijer approached a member who appeared on the verge of a breakdown. He asked his new colleague if he was okay. The member responded that he was not; that no matter his belief in the legitimacy of the election, he could no longer vote to certify the results, because he feared for his family’s safety. “Remember, this wasn’t a hypothetical. You were casting that vote after seeing with your own two eyes what some of these people are capable of,” Meijer says. “If they’re willing to come after you inside the U.S. Capitol, what will they do when you’re at home with your kids?”

 

On Tuesday of this week, Meijer was defeated in a primary — defeated by John Gibbs, a MAGA man who says that the 2020 election was stolen. Doing their part were the Democrats, who spent nearly half a million dollars boosting Gibbs. Their reasoning: He would be easier to defeat in the general than Meijer.

 

Meijer himself wrote about this, scaldingly, here.

 

The Democrats’ intervention was despicable, in my opinion. Unpatriotic, too. Also, they should be careful what they wish for, or what they boost: Gibbs might wind up in Congress. At the same time, Republicans are responsible for whom they nominate, and elect.

 

As an aside: Do you remember Operation Chaos? In 2008, Rush Limbaugh had his armies turn out for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries, thinking she would be easier to beat than her front-running opponent, Barack Obama.

 

This is an old game. People cheer it or boo it, depending.

 

In the media, I have seen Peter Meijer referred to as a “moderate.” I think this is wrong: He’s pretty much a classic conservative. But he’s not a seditious liar, which makes people think of him as moderate, which is a reflection of our times.

 

Enemy No. 1 for MAGA — and Anti-Anti-MAGA, a large and important camp — is Liz Cheney, of Wyoming. Her principal opponent in the Republican primary, Harriet Hageman, says, “The election was rigged. Absolutely, the election was rigged.” Kevin McCarthy, the GOP leader in the House, is a Hageman backer, naturally. According to reports, he will travel to Wyoming on Primary Day, August 16, presumably to spike the football in Cheney’s face.

 

Does McCarthy believe that “the election was rigged”? “Absolutely, the election was rigged”? Does it even matter, in our politics?

 

At the outset of the January 6 hearings, Cheney made a statement: “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

 

Here is a headline from the Associated Press, dated yesterday: “Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers loses state Senate bid.” The article tells us,

 

Trump pressured Bowers to help with a plan to replace electors committed to now-President Joe Biden during a phone call weeks after Trump lost the 2020 election. Bowers refused.

 

Bowers insisted on seeing Trump’s evidence of voter fraud, which he said Trump’s team never produced beyond vague allegations. He recalled Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani later told him, “We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.”

 

Bowers was a major MAGA target, obviously, and now he is defeated. He said, “I’d do it all again the same way.” There’s an American. There’s a public servant. There’s a patriot.

 

Rusty Bowers can sleep well at night. He can hold his head high. So can “the traitorous ten,” or the faithful ten.

 

Arizona tells the story of the transformation of the GOP. Once: Goldwater, McCain, Kyl. Now: Lake, Masters, Rogers. A lot of people think this transformation is for the better; others of us don’t.

 

Ohio tells the tale, too. The outgoing senator, Rob Portman, is the Republican chairman of the Senate Ukraine Caucus. The GOP’s nominee to replace him, J.D. Vance, told Steve Bannon (of course), “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”

 

Night and day.

 

But back to the business of truth and lies, concerning 2020. The old saying goes, “Magna est veritas et praevalebit” — Great is truth and will prevail. Well, ultimately . . .