Can Republicans be re-admitted to American democracy?

 After yesterday's attempted insurrection, incited and led by Donald J. Trump, I found myself thinking once again of Stephen L. Carter's alternate history novel, The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln.  I strongly recommend it.  As a novel, it has many flaws, but for history and politics buffs, I cannot recommend it strongly enough.  The premise of the alternate history is that Lincoln survives Booth's bullet, only to be impeached by the "radical Republican" faction in Congress amid Reconstruction.  Fascinating, and since Trump portrayed himself in Lincoln-ian terms, while claiming to be the victim of nefarious conspiracies, it puts the modern world in an interesting perspective, even though it was written before Trump.  Read it.

Anyway, I find myself thinking about Reconstruction, Lincoln, and the problem of the South.  Let's be blunt.  What just happened was an attempted insurrection against the United States.  Trump, himself, is irredeemable.  He is a monster, of pure evil.  A creature of chaos and destruction.  This is what he has wrought.  And yet it could have been so much worse.  Ideally, he'd go to prison, but we all know that'll never happen.

The question is, what happens to those who participated and enabled him?  I write, of course, of the Republican Party writ large.  Can they be re-admitted to American democracy?  The division in the Republican Party after the Civil War was over the treatment of the South once the war was over.  How punitive should the country be?  What should be the process of readmission?  All of that.  In Carter's novel, Lincoln's impeachment centered to some degree on his opposition to the harshest measures sought by the radical Republicans during Reconstruction, which, if you know your history, gives you an interesting perspective.  And yet, what should the country have done?

A few people come to mind as worthy of participation in governance right now.  Beyond those excommunicated from the GOP during Trump's reign, of course, like Justin Amash.

Mitt Romney.  Adam Kinzinger.

Dick and Liz Cheney.  Personally, I'm not all that surprised by the Cheneys.  They were always ideologues rather than partisans, and they were never in it for the power.

So what about Lindsey Graham?

Lindsey Graham has been an easy target for ridicule.  He is the paragon of phony honor.  When John McCain was around, he latched onto McCain with the hope that McCain's reputation for integrity would spread to him.  He ran for the 2016 nomination, against Trump, and correctly called Trump on every vile thing about that subhuman piece of shit.  Then... Trump won, and Graham turned himself into Trump's most obsequious, little flunky, and given the rumors about Graham's... shall we say, "lifestyle," imply what you will.

Yet when the electoral college vote is certified, Graham says enough.

After everything Graham did... remember Brett Kavanaugh?...  how do we assess this little shit?

Do I respect him?  For this?  No.  He just sees which way the wind is blowing.  This isn't about honor or integrity for Graham, because he has neither.  He has never been anything other than an opportunist and a weasel.  And a coward.  But he knows it's over for Trump.  So now he abandons the sinking ship, like the rat he is.

Yet we must ask the Lincoln question.  The post-Civil War question, of that South Carolinian, who even posed his speech in terms of Reconstruction.  What now?  Is Graham permanently exiled?

Ted Cruz.  Josh Hawley.  Obviously, Gohmert and people like that should never have been allowed anywhere near the levers of power.  But what about Graham?  What about the Republicans who looked at yesterday's riot and attempted insurrection and finally, finally said, "no, I stand with democracy"?  What about them?

This weekend, I'll have a more detailed post about the new "line of cleavage" in American democracy.  Democracy itself.  We shall discuss E.E. Schattschneider's A Semisovereign People.

Regardless of why, Lindsey Graham and a few others are finally standing on the side of democracy.  That's a low bar.  Among the lowest, but when the enemy stands against democracy, we need all the allies we can get.

Yes, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and the rest are enemies of democracy.  They are enemies of America.  There can be no reconciliation with them.  They must be excommunicated from the body politic.  They won't be, though, and that's the problem.  Welcome to a democracy in which the line of cleavage is democracy.