Watching/reading coverage of the thuggery and criminality on Capitol Hill, driven by white supremacists, it's reassuring to see how US politicians with normal integrity - mostly Democrats - can't swallow the behaviour of Republican congressmen and women who enabled Trump for four years then were either silent in the face of all the lies and bogus attempts to overturn a democratically successful election, or joined in and supported that travesty.
Who even now are mute and in hiding – apart from those who have the gall to accuse Democrats of fostering disunity with their insistence on holding Trump to account and going ahead with impeachment.
How about Vice President Mike Pence? The mob was chanting "hang Pence, hang Pence". Neither he nor any other Republican believes that Trump didn't cause the violence on Capitol Hill that led to the deaths of five people, or that he has any sanity left at all.
They are fully aware that Trump could start a nuclear war today, within five minutes – and that internationally the US has been shamed horrendously, its reputation for being a bastion of Western democracy shredded. The damage done by this president has rippled out across the globe. The planet.
But Pence and members of Trump's cabinet who haven't resigned don’t want to invoke the 25th. Are none of them worried that they could have more blood on their hands? Do they think they'll get a warning before Trump does something worse? You’d have to be brain dead to believe they’re not thinking about it, or to think they don’t know full well the risk they’re taking, on behalf of those whose lives they have been elected to protect.
No wonder Democrats are wild with righteous anger. Which of us can accept behaviour like that of this band of Republican politicians? It's counter-intuitive to decent people. Humans aren't supposed to be like this. Intellectually we can understand the rank betrayal of normal values and point to all the examples of it in history – past, recent, and still going on - but our heart sand souls still react violently. We’re not built to believe that humans can be evil, cynical, consumed with greed and lust for power.
So, thank you Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and all the Democrats and a couple of Republicans who have always spoken out against Trump and are calling for him to be thrown out and banned from ever running again. Who show their faces on TV and speak openly of their disgust, outrage, disdain and horror despite the very real and present danger that doing so exposes them to.
The world owes them a debt of gratitude for their clear headedness, strength of purpose and huge courage.
