In an opinion piece in The Atlantic titled “QAnon is Destroying the GOP From Within,” Republican Senator Ben Sasse is calling on his Republican Party to “repudiate the nonsense that has set our party on fire.”
Until last week, many party leaders and consultants thought they could preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon. They can’t. The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them. Now is the time to decide what this party is about.
Sasse offers several criticisms not only for Trump and Republicans embracing crack-pot theories, but poses the choice his party must make to either defend the Constitution of the United States and perpetutate our “best American institutions and traditions, or we can be a party of conspiracy theories.”
Sasse blames the violence on “the blossoming of a rotten seed that took root in the Republican Party some time ago and has been nourished by treachery, poor political judgment, and cowardice.”
Sasse criticized House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy specifically for not denouncing Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The newly elected Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. She once ranted that “there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.” During her campaign, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a choice: disavow her campaign and potentially lose a Republican seat, or welcome her into his caucus and try to keep a lid on her ludicrous ideas. McCarthy failed the leadership test and sat on the sidelines. Now in Congress, Greene isn’t going to just back McCarthy as leader and stay quiet. She’s already announced plans to try to impeach Joe Biden on his first full day as president. She’ll keep making fools out of herself, her constituents, and the Republican Party.
The op-ed is available here at The Atlantic if you are not held to a paywall.
Otherwise, Axios has covered the story.
