A “fifth column” is any group of people who betray a larger group from within, usually at the behest of a foreign enemy. Example: the Republican Party are betraying America because Russia – Vlad Putin – has given them zero choice. That’s how kompromat works. Ask Lindsey Graham. His whole attitude toward Donald Trump changed over the course of one round of golf! Lindsey went from calling Trump a “kook” who’d destroy the GOP if nominated to Trump’s most reliably sycophantic sycophant. When Lindsey burps, you get Trumpian DNA on his breath. It’s like Trump is a fifth column inside Lindsey. Whoever Lindsey Graham was is long gone. He’s Trump’s creature now in every way, shape and form. The same thing is true of the Republican Party. They’re now Trump’s creature – absolutely! But Trump isn’t Trump’s creature, he’s Putin’s creature.
If Putin told Trump to appear naked on American television to profess his love for Nancy Pelosi, Trump would do it. He has no choice. If Putin told every member of the GOP leadership to appear naked behind Trump – all professing their love for AOC? THEY’D do it. Because THEY have no choice.
It all goes back to June 25, 2016 – a month before the GOP nominated Trump to be their presidential candidate. Current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy enters a meeting of GOP leaders with this bold statement: “There’s two people I think Putin pays – Rohrbacher and Trump – swear to God!” While there was nervous laughter in the room, no one thought McCarthy was joking – especially not then “Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan. Ryan didn’t question McCarthy. Didn’t ask him where he got such an idea. Didn’t ask anyone else in the room if they’d heard such a thing – an assertion that the man they were about to nominate to be POTUS was potentially a grave national security threat. No one in the room suggested that perhaps a call to the FBI was in order.
Instead, everyone in the room – current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy included – agreed to keep this terrible secret a secret!
Following Speaker Ryan’s advice, the GOP leadership agreed that no one outside that room should hear what those inside the room either knew or suspected. If all of them could keep that secret, it would demonstrate, Ryan told them all, that they were “family”.
Ah, but a family of what?
A family of people “who betray a larger group from within, usually at the behest of a foreign enemy” – just like a fifth column.
How do we know the rest of the Republican Party is as tied to Russia’s interests as Trump is? Their actions! The Republicans have done everything they can think of to obstruct any and all investigations into Trump’s relationship with Russia and Putin. Is it just to protect a Republican president from scrutiny? Well, it might have been – if the Republican leadership didn’t know about Trump’s relationship with Russia going in. But – as we know – by June 25, 2016, before the GOP nominated Trump, they knew what they knew.
Slowly but surely our news media is finding it harder to normalize Trump. That’s after having normalized “Mexicans are rapists”, “pussy-grabbing”, four years of openly corrupt behavior and four years of scratching their heads each time they pondered Trump’s relationship with Putin and the GOP’s relationship with Trump. Consider what our press has shrugged off as “mysterious” and “hard to explain” when, in fact, they themselves have reported the explanation!
Even Mitch McConnell can see the handwriting on the wall. There’s no normalizing insurrection. No redefining violence against We The People as “legitimate political discourse”. When the indictments pierce the veil of elected members of Congress and people like Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan and Marjory Taylor Greene suddenly have real and massive legal bills in front of them, the whole nature of the conversation we’re having will change. When the hammer finally drops on Matt Gaetz and he must choose between spending the rest of his life in prison or spending just some of his life there – but only if he’ll tell us everything he knows about Trumpian corruption? A soft, white polyp like Gaetz is going to sing like Pavarotti.
When the rats begin turning on themselves, the feeding frenzy won’t stop. They’ll all be facing treason charges, don’t forget. That is where everything ultimately leads. It’s why the stakes were always huge from the get-go. It’s why the Republicans have always known there was no going back. That ship sailed beyond the horizon on June 25, 2016 – the day the Republican Party officially made itself Russia’s inside “dope”.