There is, these days, no shortage of blathering and entirely dangerous statements being made, and precedents being set, by Trump and his acolytes, and by the cowed political leaders of the Trumpified GOP.<\/p>\n
But, even in an era of debased politics, we are seeing some entirely extraordinary events.<\/p>\n
Late last month, Trump took to his Truth Social site to attack Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. So far, so normal. Except on September 30, his rant took an extra sinister turn, even by his diabolic standards. In casting his vote in the Senate (on unspecified measures) in a way the ex-president opposed, McConnell had, Trump wrote, shown that he has a \u201cDEATH WISH.\u201d<\/a> Moreover, in an explicitly racist, albeit incoherent, attack against McConnell\u2019s wife, Elaine Chao — one of Trump\u2019s own ex-cabinet members — Trump ranted that the Republican leader in the Senate must \u201cimmediately seek help and advise [sic] from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!\u201d<\/p>\n Now, put to one side for the minute that this line makes absolutely no sense, and just consider the raw racial animus of this statement. It was the sort of bone-headed racist diatribe that, in a bygone television era, Archie Bunker might have launched. Perhaps more of the moment, it represented the sort of racist bile that has driven up violent anti-Asian hate crimes around the country since the COVID pandemic hit the U.S. in early 2020.<\/p>\n So, how did the GOP leadership respond to Trump whipping up his mob to attack McConnell and Chao?<\/p>\n McConnell and his office responded with a series of no comments, <\/a>which is pretty much a cowardly par for the course for a man who enabled Trump\u2019s escalating fanaticism throughout his four-year presidency, who said that he held Trump \u201cmorally responsible\u201d<\/a> for the January 6 insurrection but then turned around and marshaled his Senators to vote \u201cnot guilty\u201d in Trump\u2019s impeachment trial \u2014 thus ensuring that he has remained a loud, and menacing, presence hanging over the GOP to this day.<\/p>\n Most GOP senators simply headed for the hills and declined to get involved in this latest intra-party brouhaha.<\/p>\n And the ones who did make statements were so milquetoast in their observations that they would have maintained more dignity by staying silent. Sen<\/a>.<\/a> Rick Scott<\/a> (R-Florida) mustered up enough courage, when asked about the \u201cdeath wish\u201d comment to say, simply, \u201cWhat I want to make sure is what I can do. I can try my best to bring people together.\u201d As for Trump\u2019s racist attack on Chao, Scott noted, \u201cThe president likes to give people nicknames.\u201d<\/p>\n