GEN

A former publication from Medium about politics, power, and culture. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Follow publication

There’s No Healing From This

A major political party decided they’re done with democracy. We can’t forgive and move on.

Katelyn Burns
GEN
Published in
3 min readJan 8, 2021

--

Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

Just two days after Republican insurrectionists took over the U.S. Capitol and numerous state capitols, and 147 Republican members of Congress voted against the official Electoral College vote certification shortly afterward, those same lawmakers are now begging the country to forgive and forget.

Respectfully, fuck that.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-SC, a stalwart ally of insurrectionist president Donald Trump, insisted on Friday morning that impeaching Trump now, with just two weeks left in his term, would only sow further division. (This comes from the same man who was caught on tape in mid-November asking the Georgia secretary of state to overturn the results of the state’s legally run election.) Graham is now asking that the country “heal” and move on from the violence of this week, which he had a direct hand in causing.

Several major GOP figures echoed Graham’s calls for healing, like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, who voted against the Electoral College certification about 24 hours earlier.

Republican calls to move on and heal are nothing but a desperate attempt to ward off the consequences of their own actions. The GOP thought it could get what it wanted — tax cuts for the extremely wealthy and ideological control of the courts—by attaching itself to Trump. Republicans assumed they could use the man whose rallies featured abject violence from their earliest days as a mere pawn for ideological gain.

Now, having gotten what they wanted, but seeing Trump’s rally violence spread into their own hallowed grounds, they’re desperate to wash the poop stink off their own political reputations.

But healing cannot happen until those who did wrong face consequences, and the GOP has never faced any serious repercussions for their own actions in the last 50 years.

--

--

GEN
GEN

Published in GEN

A former publication from Medium about politics, power, and culture. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Katelyn Burns
Katelyn Burns

Written by Katelyn Burns

Political journalist. The first openly trans Capitol Hill reporter in US history. Writing about more than just trans issues. Follow her on Twitter @transscribe

Responses (36)

Write a response