(Dobbs) Heaven Help Us

We are hearing now from America’s most selective right-wing politicians.

There is outrage on the right, the likes of which we never saw in the wake of the insurrection of January 6th, 2021.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the indictment of Donald Trump “irreparably damaged our country.” But did he say anything like that after January 6th? No.

“Another political witch hunt targeting the people’s President” was the judgement of Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert. But did she ever complain that the January 6th insurrection targeted our very democracy? No.

Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader, said the indictment is “one of the clearest examples of extremist Democrats weaponizing government.” Did he ever refer to extremists from his side of the aisle not just weaponizing but attacking our government? No.

The Republicans’ #4 leader in the House, New York’s Elise Stefanik, called this a “dark day for America.” Did she ever decry the darkness after the attack on the Capitol? No.

The explosive Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she will travel to New York, where the ex-president is due to surrender, to protest his indictment. The last trip she took that attracted attention was Friday a week ago when she traveled to the Washington DC jail in which January 6th defendants are held and told the world that these men and women who tried to undermine our democracy are “political prisoners.” Did she ever condemn what landed them in jail in the first place? No.

Not to be forgotten, there’s also Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who declared that “The rule of law appears to be suspended,” and had the dangerous temerity to say that this is “probably not the best time to give up your AR-15s.” Did this idol of the far right ever lift a finger to cool tempers instead of igniting them? No.

And finally there’s the accused criminal himself. Predictably, with his penchant for capitalizing every word when he’s angry, he called the indictment “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.” Did this sick man ever, even once, refer to the insurrection that threatened the democracy of the nation he once led in such incendiary terms? No. Of course not. He doesn’t have it within him.

These are the kinds of people who purport to make America great again. Heaven help America if they are the ones who remake it.

Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 36-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.