As Republican Senators in Washington, D.C., prepared to block the creation of a bipartisan investigation into the January 6 insurrection, another event was taking place.    

In Dalton, Georgia, Representative Matt Gaetz (R – FL) gave an impassioned speech to a crowd. His topic: The Second Amendment.

“It’s not about hunting. It’s not about recreation. It’s not about sports. The Second Amendment is about maintaining within the citizenry the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government, if that becomes necessary. I hope it never does.”

In short: It’s about treason.

On the May 28, 2021 edition of The PBS Newshour, correspondent Lisa Desjardins explained: 

“There, you heard—it’s about maintaining an armed insurrection. He said he doesn’t hope that it comes to pass. But this is different than traditional conservative thought about protecting liberty, individuals’ homes.

“This is an obvious statement about making government itself the enemy. I should note, of course, that Representative Gaetz is under federal investigation, over accusations involving prostitution and corruption that he denies.

“But we wanted to highlight this clip, because we—the crowd’s reaction, and Representative Gaetz pointedly talking about government as the potential enemy.”

Matt Gaetz

Anyone who still doubts that the Right generally and the followers of Donald Trump in particular aren’t bent on establishing a dictatorship need only consider this.

On May 31, 2021, QAnon hosted a conference called the For God and Country Patriot Roundup in Dallas. The event was attended by conspiracy theorists and peddlers of Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 Presidential election was “stolen” from him by massive vote fraud. 

One of Its keynote speakers was retired Army General Michael T. Flynn. Flynn had been Trump’s first national security advisor—until he was forced to resign for lying about his past meetings with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

In December, 2016, Flynn had talked with Kislyak about removing the sanctions placed on Russia by the outgoing Obama administration. The sanctions had been placed in retaliation for Russia’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 Presidential election.

“I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here?” a member of the audience, who identified himself as a Marine, asked Flynn.

“No reason, I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That’s right,” Flynn responded.

From his remarks, it was clear that Flynn supported a similar overthrow of the government of the United States.   

Later, when this was made clear to him, Flynn denied it.  

In a message posted to a Parler account,  Flynn claimed that his words had been twisted: “Let me be VERY CLEAR – There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America, and I do not and have not at any time called for any action of that sort.”

But Flynn’s behavior in the closing weeks of the Trump administration confirm that he has advocated the use of military force to install—or maintain—a dictatorship.

After losing the 2020 Presidential election to former Vice President Joseph Biden, Trump was desperate to remain in office. Flynn was present at an Oval Office meeting where he suggested that Trump could invoke martial law to overturn the results.

It wasn’t clear whether Trump endorsed the idea, but others in the room forcefully shot it down.

“Flynn’s remarks border on sedition,” said Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), a retired Navy commander who vice-chairs the House Armed Services Committee, about Flynn’s comments at the QAnon conference.

“There’s certainly conduct unbecoming an officer. Those are both things that can be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and I think that as a retiree of the military, it should certainly be a path that we consider to have consequences for these types of words.”

Elaine Luria

At the same event in Dallas, Flynn also claimed—falsely: “Trump won. He won the popular vote, and he won the Electoral College vote.”

As a matter of fact, Trump won neither.

Biden won 81,268,924 popular votes to Trump’s 74,216,154. And in the Electoral College, Biden won 306 votes to Trump’s 232. 

* * * * *

History teaches us that republics that tolerate treason soon become former republics.

For Republicans, gaining—and retaining—absolute power has become their foremost reason for existence.

It isn’t enough for them to create voter suppression laws to prevent their opponents from voting. They now insist on the right to violently overthrow any Democrat who somehow manages to win the Presidency against them.

Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” episode, “Death’s Head Revisited,”  reveals how Republicans react when confronted with overwhelming evidence of their evil. 

In that episode, a former Nazi SS camp captain returns to the Dachau concentration camp to savor the torments he once inflicted on helpless men and women. To his horror, he’s greeted by the ghosts of those victims.

To one of them—Becker—he says: “That was such a long time ago. Let’s forget about all that—unpleasantness—and move on.” 

Thus have Republicans reacted when confronted with overwhelming evidence that President Donald J. Trump, having lost the 2020 Presidential election, incited violence against the Government of the United States. 

And just as most of the Original Nazis were forced to confront their past “unpleasantness”-–and were punished for it—today’s Republicans must face punishment for their own.