GOP senator rips the 'cable-news fantasies' that destroyed his party in brutal new essay

The Republican Party's rejection of reality was blasted by a GOP senator in a 2,000 word essay published by The Atlantic on Saturday evening.

"Eugene Goodman is an American hero. At a pivotal moment on January 6, the veteran United States Capitol Police officer single-handedly prevented untold bloodshed. Staring down an angry, advancing mob, he retreated up a marble staircase, calmly wielding his baton to delay his pursuers while calling out their position to his fellow officers. At the top of the steps, still alone and standing just a few yards from the chamber where senators and Vice President Mike Pence had been certifying the Electoral College's vote, Goodman strategically lured dozens of the mayhem-minded away from an unguarded door to the Senate floor," Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) began.

"The leader of that flank of the mob, later identified by the FBI as Douglas Jensen, wore a T-shirt emblazoned with a red-white-and-blue Q—the insignia of the delusional QAnon conspiracy theory," he noted. "Its supporters believe that a righteous Donald Trump is leading them in a historic quest to expose the U.S. government's capture by a global network of cannibalistic pedophiles: not just 'deep state' actors in the intelligence community, but Chief Justice John Roberts and a dozen-plus senators, including me. Now Trump's own vice president is supposedly in on it, too. According to the FBI, Jensen "wanted to have his T-shirt seen on video so that 'Q' could 'get the credit.'"

"January 6 is a new red-letter day in U.S. history, not just because it was the first time that the Capitol had been ransacked since the War of 1812, but because a subset of the invaders apparently were attempting to disrupt a constitutionally mandated meeting of the Congress, kidnap the vice president, and somehow force him to declare Trump the victor in an election he lost," Sasse explained. "The violence that Americans witnessed—and that might recur in the coming days—is not a protest gone awry or the work of 'a few bad apples.' It is the blossoming of a rotten seed that took root in the Republican Party some time ago and has been nourished by treachery, poor political judgment, and cowardice. When Trump leaves office, my party faces a choice: We can dedicate ourselves to defending the Constitution and perpetuating our best American institutions and traditions, or we can be a party of conspiracy theories, cable-news fantasies, and the ruin that comes with them. We can be the party of Eisenhower, or the party of the conspiracist Alex Jones. We can applaud Officer Goodman or side with the mob he outwitted. We cannot do both."

For Sasse, there is a big choice coming, citing controversial QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

"Until last week, many party leaders and consultants thought they could preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon. They can't. The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them. Now is the time to decide what this party is about," he explained. "The newly elected Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. She once ranted that 'there's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.' During her campaign, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a choice: disavow her campaign and potentially lose a Republican seat, or welcome her into his caucus and try to keep a lid on her ludicrous ideas. McCarthy failed the leadership test and sat on the sidelines. Now in Congress, Greene isn't going to just back McCarthy as leader and stay quiet. She's already announced plans to try to impeach Joe Biden on his first full day as president. She'll keep making fools out of herself, her constituents, and the Republican Party. If the GOP is to have a future outside the fever dreams of internet trolls, we have to call out falsehoods and conspiracy theories unequivocally. We have to repudiate people who peddle those lies."

The essay was published after Trump was impeached for the second time, but before the start of his Senate trial.