Quick(ish) take: Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Paul Gosar. The virtuous cycle of integrity, and the vicious cycle of... vice. I suck at titles.

 Paul Gosar, blah-blah, the GOP has no bottom.  Yes, we know.  Let's observe something more interesting.  Were you to hear that two Republicans in the House voted to censure Gosar, you would know, without a doubt, that those two Republicans were Cheney and Kinzinger.  There is important information here.  In order to break from your party, you must break from your party.  Behold my tautological tautology.  As I often implore you, you must learn to recognize the cranks and charlatans on your own side.  Gosar, of course, is worse than a crank, and worse than a charlatan.  He is a psychopath.  Yet breaking from the party, and recognizing that, and saying it, and taking appropriate action all require having a mindset of a willingness to break from the party.  Once you start, you start to recognize all of the other places you need to break.  Let's note something.  Gosar is not Trump, and this has nothing directly to do with Trump.  Gosar is, in some ways, Trump-like.  Yet his fantasies about murdering Ocasio-Cortez and Biden did not invoke Trump.  That's just him and his sick mind.  So who can recognize how sick it is?  And how dangerous he is?  The two who broke, from Trump, and the party.  Because having broken from Trump, and the party, they can look with clear eyes.  And those with the courage and conscience to do so have the courage and conscience to do so again on a matter that has nothing to do with Trump.

This is not about Trump.  For once, there's something that isn't about Trump.  But it's still Kinzinger and Cheney who have the clarity to see and the courage to act.

In order to look with clear eyes, you need to have a practice of seeing when your own side is full of shit, doing the wrong thing, rallying around a piece of shit, or otherwise just plain wrong.  The first time makes the second time easier.  True for doing good, as well as for evil.  Kinzinger and Cheney did good, and that made it easier for them to keep doing good, in the face of pressure from their party to maintain a unified front for evil, rallying around some of the most despicable people in American political history.  Like Trump, and Gosar.  Who is not Trump.

Now, the GOP is threatening retaliation.  Of course, no Democrats are making death threats.  They have mentioned Ilhan Omar, though, and I have implored Democrats to recognize what she is.  Is she Gosar?  No.  Not even close.  She does not make death threats.  She is, however, an antisemite, a fool, and fundamentally, someone who does not appear to like anything about the United States of America, while defending or minimizing terrorism.  As bad as Gosar?  No.  Worthy of censure or expulsion?  No.

Yet I have been telling you to recognize what she is.  If you can't, then you have the same core problem.  Clouded vision.

Can you recognize when your own side is gaslighting you?  They are, on critical race theory in the schools.  Remember McAuliffe and the Virginia gubernatorial campaign?  No CRT in the schools, right?  Um... there's a paper trail.  You are being gaslit.  The left is gaslighting you on critical race theory.  Read the documents.  McAuliffe lied.  Straight-up.  This is gaslighting.  Stop it.  Stop letting this happen.  This is just one recent example.

And here's the thing.  Once you start to see what's wrong with your own side, you start to see more.  That's why Cheney and Kinzinger were able to vote to censure Gosar, who is, to repeat, not Trump.

If you are too trapped in the left-wing bubble, where Ilhan Omar is a totally cool person because she's on the left, and there's no such thing as CRT in schools, and so forth... have you ever just looked at your own side, and said, "what?!  You people are crazy!"  Ever?  Once?  Not just disagreed, but thought they were kinda off their rockers, lying... 

Really?  Just a force for pure goodness and light and all that?  This bunch-o... humans?

When you let people get away with shit, you know what happens?  More shit.  And eventually, you know what happens?  Paul Gosar.  Donald Trump.

Is Ilhan Omar the same as them?  No.  But she's a bigot and a fool, and if that is tolerated, there is a slippery slope.

You wanna complain about Trump's lies?  Don't let McAuliffe or the rest of the party gaslight you.

If you look at Cheney and Kinzinger and say, hey, they're pretty awesome, then ask yourself the following.  How often do you mindlessly accept what your own side tells you?  There's some shit going on with the left these days.  Liz Cheney is standing for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, because Liz fucking rocks.

What that means is a willingness to challenge your own side.  That's a virtuous cycle.  Once you learn, you can do it again.