Fascist F—kers: The Traitors Have Never Been Easier to Spot

126 Republican lawmakers signed on to a seditious lawsuit. Some of the names are no surprise.

THE TRAITORS are easy to spot.

For the last three-plus years, that has been my tagline. I’ll retweet some corrupt Senator, degenerate House member, or washed-out celebrity—whoever said or did something egregiously and despotically pro-Putin—under that comment. On one of these occasions, I got the then-Acting Director of National Intelligence to deny being a Russian operative—although, curiously, I’d never charged him with being one:

Richard Grenell @RichardGrenell

Hey Greg, let’s debate without calling people traitors or Russian operatives. I love America. I’m absolutely focused on ensuring intelligence isn’t politicized from the inside - or on the outside.

Greg Olear @gregolear

The traitors are easy to spot. This one is wearing sunglasses for some reason. https://t.co/UTPgvzsX5J

The other side likens this tactic to “McCarthyism,” while casual observers accuse me of being “political.” But this was never about politics, per se. Yes, I’m a Democrat, a proud supporter of Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and, once the latter dropped out of the race, Joe Biden. But I’m not opposed to Trump because of policy matters (although his policies, insofar as he had any beyond enriching himself and his cronies, were all abjectly awful). I’m opposed to him because he has spent the last four years trying to destroy the republic. And it’s important to make that distinction. As Adam Gopnik wrote in the New Yorker just before inauguration four years ago: “In such a moment of continued emergency, the most important task may be to distinguish as rigorously as possible between new policies and programs that, however awful, are a reflection of the moral oscillation of power, natural in a mature democracy, and those that are not.”

This is not, and never was, a donkey versus elephant issue. This was about the very survival of the American experiment.

Despite the highest of stakes, the mainstream media has for the last four years covered Trump much as it would any mediocre president—Dubya in orange clown make-up, Nixon with girdled paunch. It has let slide his grotesque perversion of the office. It has normalized his despotic tendencies, his corruption, his cruelty, his dishonor, his disdain for the very ideals upon which this nation was founded. It has blithely ignored his ugly history of rape and sexual assault. Even now, with the covid-19 death toll on the other side of 300,000, the press is going after Hunter Biden, Jen O’Malley Dillon, and Jill Biden’s doctorate with a ferocity not seen since its breathless coverage of HRC’s email server, while producing puff piece after puff piece about Ivanka “Herd Immunity” Trump, and scarcely mentioning the serious crimes of her father, her brother, and her husband.

But after 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives signed on to the bogus lawsuit filed by the (indicted) state attorney general of Texas last week, seeking to overturn the result of the election, we have veered into “widespread sedition” territory. Here are elected members of Congress thumbing their collective nose at the very concept of democracy. And look, I get that some of them did it cynically—they knew the lawsuit would fail, so they signed on to please their base and their idiot king. But you don’t jeopardize the very republic for a cheap political stunt. You just don’t. Especially when you’re the party that gets the vapors when athletes kneel during the National Anthem. One hundred twenty-six House Republicans come out for Fascism, and O’Malley Dillon is pilloried for calling them “fuckers?”

Some names from the list jumped out at me, none of them a surprise. Indeed, the only shock was that Devin Nunes was not involved, which may be an indication that his covid-19 symptoms are pretty bad, because this is typically the sort of treason party he lives for. Here are the usual suspects—the fuckers, if you will:

Kevin McCarthy
Cathy McMorris Rogers
The dimwitted House Minority Leader and his chum are best known for the audio recording of them discussing how Russia pays Trump and former House representative Dana Rohrabacher. These two are inveterate traitors, as I explained here and Aaron Harris explained much more elegantly here.

Steve Scalise
The guy was shot by a would-be assassin who didn’t approve of his nasty, Trump-toady politics. Police officers perished trying to save his life. He emerged from that near-death experience a changed man—he was more of a selfish asshole than ever.

Doug Collins
In an early episode of The Simpsons, ne plus ultra nerd Martin Prince (no relation to Erik) is running for class president against cut-up Bart Simpson. Prince hangs up a poster that says, “A Vote for Bart is a Vote for Anarchy!” The camera pans down the hallway to reveal Bart hanging up…the exact same poster. That episode came to mind when this slack-jawed yokel Photoshopped himself flanked by two Mueller-convicted felons, plus Devin Nunes, Matt Gaetz, and Carter Fucking Page. He’s not just a traitor, he’s proud.

Doug Collins @CollinsforGA

Honored to have General Michael Flynn join our conservative campaign! Visit dougforgeorgia.com to learn more!

Oh, and I’m pretty sure my friend’s father caught covid after attending one of Collins’ indoor, maskless, packed hate rallies in Georgia.

Dan Crenshaw
Made famous by a Pete Davidson riff on SNL, Crenshaw fancies himself a real-life action hero. He makes campaign ads where he’s some sort of secret agent who gets pulled off the stump to parachute out of airplanes. These little films are the stuff of swashbuckling male fantasy, and verge on self-parody. I’m sure his base loves them. In real life, alas, the only covert op the piratical Crenshaw was part of involved helping the VA Secretary smear a woman vet, per a report from the VA OIG.

Matt Gaetz
Forget the DUI. Forget whatever the deal is with Nestor. Forget his hobnobbing with Roger Stone. Forget his reflexive Trumpist sycophancy. As a member of Congress, he 1) tried to intimidate a witness, and 2) led a publicity-stunt charge to breach a SCIF. As Brian Barrett at Wired explains:

The reason to lock down a [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] is intuitive. They’re the rooms where the most sensitive conversations related to US national security take place—or, at least, they’re supposed to be. That includes the current impeachment inquiry, which relates directly to high-level interactions between the US and foreign countries, at least some of which is presumably classified, and all of which a hacking-happy country like, say, Russia would love an inside read on.

So when Gaetz and House minority whip Steve Scalise and their merry band of lawmakers literally barge into a SCIF—they finally left after a five-hour standoff—they’re not just causing a fuss. They’re making a mockery of national security and to a lesser extent putting it at risk. Especially the congressmen who, as numerous outlets have reported, brought their smartphones into the room.

“A SCIF is designed and regulated to be a secure space—and that means keeping out electronic devices that malicious actors can exploit to conduct surveillance,” says Joshua Geltzer, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. “Bringing those into such a space can cause real national security vulnerabilities. Doing so for a political stunt potentially sacrifices security for partisan points.”

The publicity stunt demonstrates how little this sad lickspittle cares for national security or the rule of law. (As we live in a country where Black men and women are routinely executed by police for the flimsiest of misdemeanors—and, too often, for no reason at all—it’s extremely disheartening that the security guards allowed this poster boy for white privilege into the SCIF without so much as a shove.)

Greg Gianforte
He bodyslammed a journalist because he didn’t want to answer a question. That should have immediately ended his political career. It didn’t, because Montana.

Steve King
Unabashed white nationalist.

Elise Stefanik
Starry-eyed carpetbagger who rose to national prominence when she jumped head-first into the impeachment hearings. I have more sympathy for troglodytes like Louie Gohmert and Debbie Lesko, who also signed on to the lawsuit, than savvy opportunists like Stefanik, who know exactly what they’re doing—and what they’re sacrificing to the dark gods of ambition.

Greg Pence
Unquestioned allegiance to the money-launderer-in-chief runs in the family, I guess.

Jim Jordan
When Jordan was the assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University, the team doctor, Richard Strauss, was sexually abusing the wrestlers like he was getting paid a bonus for each molested student—there were 177 victims, at last count. Strauss would do things like demand genital exams if a student had a busted thumb. He’d shower with the wrestlers. He’d groom them. And Jordan, the assistant coach, knew about it and did jack shit. This is why he’s known as “Gym Jordan.” These paragraphs are from a long article at CNN:

Former OSU wrestler Adam DiSabato told Ohio state legislators in February that Jordan called him in 2018 and asked him to contradict statements by his brother, who had publicly alleged Jordan knew about Strauss’ abuse when he worked for the university.

“Jim Jordan called me crying, crying. Groveling. On the Fourth of July, begging me to go against my brother. Begging me. Crying for a half hour. That’s the kind of cover-ups that's going on there,” DiSabato told legislators.

That statement was made in a statehouse hearing, under penalty of perjury. There’s no reason to suspect it isn’t true.

So we know damned well who Jim Jordan is and what he’s about. He’s a lummox from a seahorse-shaped Congressional district who dependably looks the other way when young men in his charge are being molested. Who better to protect Dear Leader at all costs than a spineless turd who has a track record of covering up odious crimes? The seditious shower lurker might be the worst human being to serve in the House since the former Republican Speaker, Dennis Hastert, whom a federal judge called “a serial child molester,” because that’s what he was. It’s no great shock that Jimbo’s gung-ho for sedition.

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What’s to be done with these obvious, egregious traitors? There is a mechanism to punish them for their sedition, as Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) points out:

David Cicilline @davidcicilline

Serving the American people in Congress is a privilege. The 14th Amendment disqualifies those who are actively undermining our democracy from holding office. Anyone giving aid and comfort to Trump’s attempted insurrection must be held accountable.

It is unlikely that Speaker Pelosi will take this controversial route—although it would be great fun to watch the case wend its way through the courts. But Cicilline is right about holding traitors to account. How we do so—if we do so—will determine whether or not the republic can be salvaged.

In the meantime, it’s perfectly appropriate to call them by the f-word.

Not fuckers, although that also fits.

Fascists.

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Photo credit: Gage Skidmore. U.S. Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio speaking at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.