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Republicans now forced to support Trump — or face the consequences
The enemy was already inside the Capitol before the January 6 riot — and the right-wing purges against the saner US conservatives beyond those walls are just beginning, warns LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Devotees wait for former president Donald Trump to go by in Palm Beach, Florida, February 15. Although he lost the 2020 election, support for him and his brand of right-wing provocation remains high within the Republican Party

IN THE February 20 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia’s largest daily newspaper, an editorial cartoon depicted a giant Superman proclaiming: “I’m for truth, justice and the American way!” From a nearby window an elephant, the symbol of the Republican Party, retorts: “OK, you’re out of the Republican Party!”

The attempted purges have indeed begun. Any statement, or worse still, a vote, against former US president Donald Trump is now grounds for censure. But whereas before, such an action prompted threats hurled by members of far-right militia-style hate groups, now the menace is coming from the Republican Party itself. This is an ominous change.

Thus US Representative Liz Cheney, daughter of the scheming former George W Bush administration vice-president Dick Cheney and hardly a progressive Republican, was censured by the Wyoming Republican Party, the state she represents, for voting in the US House to move forward with the Trump Senate impeachment trial.

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