Conservative columnist accuses Republicans of turning their voters into a mob of anti-democracy fascists

Conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin attacked Republican officials who have spent the past decade turning their most ardent supporters into a kind of anti-democracy mob.

Writing her column on Monday, Rubin cited the CNN interviews with Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) and John Bolton as being one of a handful of Republicans willing to speak out against the tyranny that President Donald Trump is being allowed to continue.

“State election officials and judges throughout the country are serving as protectors of our democracy at a time when, frankly, Republican leaders in Washington, D.C., are failing miserably at the job, as are administration officials who have proven willing to degrade themselves, to serve the president’s brittle spirit instead of the Constitution and the American people," Rubin cited CNN's Jake Tapper from "State of the Union" this Sunday.

Veteran Post reporter Carl Bernstein outed 21 Republican officials who have been too scared to come forward with their frustration over Trump's blockade against the Biden team and a peaceful transition of power.

Meanwhile, the far-right base of the GOP has waged their own war against America after their candidate lost. When Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, activists knitted pink hats and took to the streets. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, Republicans are standing in the way of votes being counted, elections being called and generating conspiracy theories that they actually won.

"The Republican Party," [Bolton] said, is “not going to be saved by hiding in a spider hole.”

“The longer Trump rambles through our electoral system causing damage without Republican opposition, the more the Democrats are going to say that it is a Republican Party characteristic, and that you can’t trust them with the instruments of government," Bolton also said "But until people hear that, I think they will continue to be deterred from coming back to the Republican Party.”

Rubin confessed that she fears Bolton is naive thinking Republicans can keep the GOP Trump voters if they explain "you lost."

"But they cannot win national elections — or state elections outside deep-red states — by refusing to adhere to democratic principles and accept reality," wrote Rubin. "If the majority of Republican voters, who do not form an electoral majority but are critical for Republicans’ victories, really do not believe in democracy and cannot be convinced of blatantly obvious facts, Republican politicians will remain trapped in Trump’s parallel political universe. The elected Republicans who have allowed Trump’s authoritarian tactics (compulsive lying, attack on the truth, racism, fearmongering) to become the norm in their party will have no one to blame but themselves."

By refusing to take on Trump, Rubin said they created a "monster." Worse, however, they lied to their own voters, "rendering them unable and unwilling to accept the results of an election."

The right-wing Trump loyalists are just as much to blame as Trump, she said because they're perpetuating the idea that the MAGA masses are being persecuted, they believe conspiracy theories and they "no longer accept the premise of democracy."

"The Republican lawmakers who tell their base that Democrats want to take away Thanksgiving or hate Christians reinforce the white grievance mentality that Trump whipped up," said Rubin. "The Republican senators and House members who mouthed Russian propaganda and simply lied to the public about the evidence of Trump’s impeachable conduct made their own voters more ignorant and antagonistic toward factual evidence. The lawmakers who scream that Facebook (where the top-performing posts often come from conservative pundits) is out to get Republicans or that climate change is a hoax have turned their base into an unhinged mob for whom facts are irrelevant."

She closed by saying that it's not merely about Trump or even the Republicans too scared to stand up to him.

"The disturbing and more difficult conundrum is that they’ve turned tens of millions of voters into gullible consumers of Trumpian nonsense. Even if elected Republicans wanted to speak truth to the MAGA crowd, I am not certain many will listen," Rubin said.

Read the full editorial at the Washington Post.