Many Never Trump conservatives were hoping that after former President Donald Trump left the White House on January 20 and President Joe Biden entered the White House, the Republican Party would abandon Trumpism and return to a more traditional conservatism. Instead, the GOP has doubled down on its extremism; even Rep. Liz Cheney — arch-conservative daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney — is being slammed as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) by Trumpistas. Never Trumper Tom Nichols examines the state of the Republican Party in an article published by The Atlantic on February 25, arguing that the 2021 GOP is — like the Soviet Communist Party circa 1978/1979 — destined for collapse.

"The Republican Party has become, in form if not in content, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the late 1970s," the conservative Nichols laments. "I can already hear the howls about invidious comparisons. I do not mean that modern American Republicans are communists. Rather, I mean that the Republicans have entered their own kind of end-stage Bolshevism, as members of a party that is now exhausted by its failures, cynical about its own ideology, authoritarian by reflex, controlled as a personality cult by a failing old man, and looking for new adventures to rejuvenate its fortunes."

The Republican vote to acquit former President Trump wasn't just a vote to avoid accountability. It was a vote to further enfeeble and obfuscate the Constitution.

In 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention drafted the new constitution, hoping that they had clearly outlined the powers and limitations of the federal and state governments. But the framers of the Constitution often disagreed with each other on many substantial issues, especially the presidency. Vague language permitted framers to interpret the Constitution to their own liking and ensured a majority of the delegates signed the Constitution.

In an interview with CNN's Sara Sidner, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio admitted that, although he encouraged members of his far-right group to attend the "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan 6th that led to a riot at the Capitol building, he doesn't believe the election was stolen from Donald Trump -- and the added that members of the Proud Boys who entered the building broke the law.

Tarrio, who has been accused of being an FBI informant and was not on the Capitol grounds the day of the insurrection because he was in jail, stated that he had no sympathy for the terrorized lawmakers, telling Sidner, "I'm not gonna cry about people who don't give a crap about their constituents. I'm not going to sympathize with them."

"They [lawmakers] are doing the job that the people put them there to do, and if they don't like it, they can vote them out," the CNN correspondent asked. "They are still Americans, they are still human beings who felt that their lives were in danger. How can you not feel any sympathy or any empathy towards them like that?"

"I'm not going to worry about people that their only worry in life is to be re-elected," he replied which led Sidner to report that eight friends of his within the Proud Boys-- which has been designated a terrorist organization by the Canadian government -- have been taken into custody so far.

With Sidner reporting that Tarrio encouraged the Proud Boys to "show up in record numbers," she asked about the close associates of the leader -- including one in particular --who have been taken into custody.

"I condemn the actions," he replied. "I don't think that he should have done that. I think it was completely wrong, but the other seven individuals were trespassing. I think that they got caught up with the entire -- like the entire crowd, and they made a poor decision to go in there."

"Members of the Proud Boys didn't appear to just be getting caught up in this, some of them were leading this attack," the CNN correspondent pressed. "You had people removing barriers who were Proud Boys. You had someone threatening an officer, breaking the Capitol window. They weren't just following in this insurrection, it appears that some of them were leading the charge."

"Now, those three accusations, I do want to touch on those," he replied. "The breaking of the window, we've already hit."

"You think that's wrong?" Sidner interjected.

"Yeah, definitely, unequivocally, I think that's wrong. But the threatening of police officers, I didn't -- I didn't see that," he attempted.

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