Hitler didn't invent Nazis, he mobilized them, he gave them permission to dominate, recruit, terrorize, rule, and kill.
Same with Trump. I know there are only a very small percentage of people who identify as Nazis with swastika tattoos, etc. But there are many more who self identify as white supremacists and racists. And even more who don't think of themselves as racists but who are. At any rate, Trump mobilized them to be elected in 2016 and gave them permission to come out of hiding and strut their maliciousness in public, and to vote for him in 2020.
So now, we have an amazingly high number of Republicans who are so tuned into Trump's delusional madness that they say they think the election was stolen from their worshipped leader. Hard to comprehend - that claim was made by Trump in about 60 lawsuites, all but one of which failed due to lack of any basis in reality.
So now, 11 Republican Senators and about 140 Republican Congress members say they will contest the Electoral College votes validated by each state when they convene on January 6 to certify the Biden victory. Why? To appease the "Nazis" of the Republican base (Nazi being a metaphorical term referencing the nut case authoritarian, racist base of the party)
This has never happened before (1876 doesn't count since it was from a time of deep corruption that ended in a "deal" that ended Reconstruction and established the terror of Jim Crow in the South for over a century)
All of this is just a Republican Kabuki Theater on January 6, of course, and the election will not be overturned, and Biden will be confirmed. But it has two purposes - the first is for politicians to show their "Nazi" base that they are on the same side, and second to try their best to sabotage the Biden presidency with an historical vote of no confidence before he is even sworn in.
I expect Biden, and the team of experts he brings with him, will manage just fine. But the real issue is whether this little show will destroy the Republican Party.
Going forward, there will be Republican office seekers forced to campaign to the delusional wing of the Party, convinced that Trump's victory was stolen even though all evidence proves that is wasn't. There is a lot of delusion being fed to that wing of the Party, from climate change denial, to the fantasy that COVID-19 is harmless, to masks and social distancing as a plot to subjugate the freedom of real men and real patriots, etc... just a series of ludicrous delusions.
But, there actually is a real world, and there will have to be Republican office seekers who will try to run reality based campaigns.
The Republican Party is in the process of going the way of the Whigs when is destroyed itself by being both pro-slavery to the South and anti-slavery to the North. The Republicans will go down with the toxic, delusional ship of Donald Trump. I don't see how the Party can survive if it is not reality based.
