Rachel Maddow Boldly Explains Why Republicans Are As Big A Problem As Trump
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said Monday that Republicans may have a bigger problem than Donald Trump ― and that’s Republicans themselves. (Watch the video below.)
During the segment, Maddow highlighted a New York Times article published earlier in the day that compared coup attempts by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, and loyalists to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Jan. 8, 2023, after both men lost presidential elections. The article noted how both stoked their allies into violence with false claims of election fraud, but the aftermaths were starkly different.
Bolsonaro was shunned by right-wing leaders who accepted the vote tally and banned from running for office until 2030 by a Brazilian court.
Trump, meanwhile, remains the de facto head of the GOP and is poised to become the party’s nominee again. He holds a commanding lead despite facing indictments related to the insurrection and efforts to keep him off the ballot in some states because of his alleged involvement in the Capitol riot.
“Bolsonaro has since become totally irrelevant in politics in Brazil, while Trump is still at the head of the Republican Party in the United States and is poised to become the party’s nominee for president again,” Maddow said, adding that Bolsonaro is “disqualified from politics for the time being because of what he did.”
Trump, however, may not get the same treatment, with the MSNBC host noting how the “super conservative” U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing his case to stay on Colorado’s presidential primary ballot next month.
“So, it’s partly a matter of whether or not there’s a judicial penalty for effectively waging war against your own country’s democracy,” Maddow said, before turning her attention to Republicans who are complicit in Trump’s mess.
“It’s also a matter of how Republicans, how the party, how American Republican leaders have reacted to this violence from their own leader, how they’ve reacted to this anti-democratic turn in the leadership of their party,” she continued. “It is not just a Trump problem. It’s that Republicans like what Trump did. And they don’t mind the idea of him doing it again.”
Maddow: It's not a Trump problem. It is a Republican party problem. This is what they want. Other right wingers who have charismatic leaders like trump around the world don't necessarily get behind them when they try violence to stay in power. Our Republicans do. pic.twitter.com/3fBo1E4Fuu
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 9, 2024
