Peter Wehner, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has taken stock of the Tennessee Republican Party and has found that it has completely succumbed to the malign influence of former President Donald Trump.
Wehner begins his latest essay in The Atlantic by delivering a scathing assessment of the party's decision to ouster of Black Democratic State Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, taking particular exception to Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who argued that what the two Democrats did to merit expulsion might have been worse than the violent riots that broke out at the United States Capitol building on January 6th, 2021.
Sexton made the comparison even though neither Jones or Pearson engaged in any violent conduct, nor did they incite a mob of supporters to attack the state legislature. Rather, they broke House rules by loudly holding a protest against the legislature's lack of action to address gun violence.
Wehner then ties this all back to the party's decision to fully embrace Trump.
"We’re watching Trump-induced idiocy," he argues. "For more than seven years, Republicans have defended Trump’s cruel, unethical, and deranged behavior. They are constantly having to deny what they have become in service to him. It’s created cognitive dissonance. How can the party of “family values” defend a moral degenerate like Trump? How can law-and-order Republicans defend a violent insurrection and threats against judges and prosecutors? How can 'constitutional conservatives' rally around a man who attempted to subvert the Constitution by overthrowing an election?"
Wehner goes on to argue that Republicans certainly know what they've done in the name of defending Trump has been deplorable, which is why they are so willing to lash out as an exercise in projection.
"They know they would eviscerate any Democrat who did a fraction of what Trump did," he writes. "They therefore have to expend enormous psychological energy to keep from becoming sick with themselves for what they have become."
