Opinion: What is the cost of lies and and who should answer for the deadly Capitol riot?
While we wrestle with truth and lies from Republican leaders, we must heed the lessons of Chernobyl, when corrupted political power led to an unimaginable calamity. Soviet leaders feared the cost of truth. They also learned what happens when the truth is twisted and omitted. Today, we must ask about the cost of lies.
On Jan. 6, the American public experienced an insurrection the likes of which we’ve never seen. A democratic republic falls when the truth is subjugated to an individual’s whims, the moods of a mob, or an ideology that refuses reality. Who tried to bring down America’s democratic institutions?
The clear answer is Donald Trump. He lied about the 2016 primary and general elections and then about the 2020 election before it happened. But the fault lies not just with him. It is placed squarely on the faux-conservative Republican politicians in our state and federal governments who have propped up a great lie.
In 2016, some Republicans warned us about Trump. John Kasich and Jeb Bush called him out for his ignorance and chaos. Ted Cruz said that Trump didn’t “know the difference between truth and lies.” Rick Perry said that Trump was the modern-day incarnation of the 1854 Know-Nothing Party who swarmed D.C. to prevent the imagined invasion of the U.S. government by the Pope. Marco Rubio called him a “third world strong man.”
But Cruz, Perry and Rubio have abetted Trump and his inner circle of anti-American vandals. Fact checkers have documented over 25,000 patently false statements. Throughout his presidency he’s dog-whistled to the neo-Nazis at the Charlottesville riot — “very fine people” — spoken directly to the Proud Boys — “stand back and stand by” — and quoted segregationists and enemies of Civil Rights from generations past to incite violence. As California Representative Adam Schiff said at the Senate’s (first) impeachment trial, “(Trump) has betrayed our national security ... and our elections, and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What’s right matters even less, & decency matters not at all.” Schiff was right. And his abetters are no different.
Ambition-blinded Republican Senators like Cruz and Josh Hawley tried to climb Trump’s ladder of chaos for their own self-interest. Now, blood is on their hands. But never forget that state Sen. Jake Corman and Rep. Kerry Benninghoff are culpable by asking the Congress and Senate not to certify the Electoral College votes, thus undermining our election’s integrity. For the record: They publicly stated they would not do this.
The Pennsylvania Constitution states in Article VII, Section 13, that contested elections shall be decided by the courts. Trump, with Benninghoff’s support, filed antagonistic lawsuits in Pennsylvania, even though their arguments against mail-in ballots were in hypocritical opposition to legislation passed by Benninghoff’s Republican majority. Those lawsuits were summarily dismissed by a Trump-appointed judge. But then Corman and Benninghoff called for anti-constitutional, national reinforcements. Damn the courts. Trump had to win even though the alleged fraud had no evidence.
On Jan. 6, the home of America’s deliberative democracy was ransacked. Five lives were stolen, including a police officer. And yet eight Republican congressmen from Pennsylvania — John Joyce, Mike Kelly, Daniel Meuser, Scott Perry, Guy Reschenthaler, Lloyd Smucker, and Centre County’s own Fred Keller and Glenn Thompson — did as Corman and Benninghoff asked and voted on the side of real fraud. Without any factual or legal basis, they cemented themselves as sycophants on the wrong side of history who bow before Trump’s narcissistic, paranoid delusions. They’ve brought America to our lowest point since the secessions of 1861.
Whether by a remnant sense of duty, expulsion based on parliamentary rules, or by election in 2022, every one of these men should resign or be removed from office. And as their constituents and residents of this great commonwealth, we must continue to press them until they’re out of office, and held accountable.
If Jan. 6 has a gift in it, it’s the knowledge that we must never fear the cost of truth. Now we must assess the cost of listening to years of lies. Right now, that cost is American carnage.