It isn't GOP cowardice but approval that emboldens Trump

By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist

Calling elected Republicans cowards gives them undeserved credit. It implies that, seeing what Donald Trump and his brutality-loving private army (New Republic: tinyurl.com/2Bbrutal) known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement are doing, plus his lawlessness and egotistical imperialism, they know it’s wrong but are afraid to say so.

No.

By now, their silence and that of the misinformed people who elected them shows they love what they’re seeing. They’re not cowards. They’re collaborators. They’re participating in the undoing of America, furthering a totalitarian, white supremacist theocracy, a blitzkrieg against democracy begun well before Trump descended upon us. And, as Europe no longer trusts the U.S., the ceding of world economic and political power to China.

The votes are there. We shouldn’t have to wait till the November election. By voting to defund it, Congress could stop the excesses of ICE in a minute. It could reclaim its war powers and redirect its investigative ones. It could recall its constitutional role in levying tariffs. All it would take is a handful of Republicans to rediscover their humanity and duty to the law, assuming they once existed. Except for chameleons like J.D. Vance and Lindsey Graham, people don’t change so completely, so fast. Amorality and disregard for the Constitution must have defined them from the beginning.

Surely they’ve seen what President-de-facto Stephen Miller told ICE agents after the murder in Minneapolis: “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one — no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist — can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties… If officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.” Translation: Ignore local laws and officials. You won’t be prosecuted. The prosecuted will be anyone who tries to make you follow American law. I am the law. Trump (to a lesser extent) is the law. Not the courts, not a moldering piece of parchment.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/schwab-it-isnt-gop-cowardice-but-approval-that-emboldens-trump/