Last week, in a piece about how the Republicans are humiliating the Democrats, I said there's no real chance of the United States Congress failing to raise the debt ceiling. Failure would instantly trigger a worldwide economic calamity. Though the Republicans are behaving irresponsibly, don't worry, I said. The Democrats won't let that happen.

The point of last week's piece was that the Democrats, in standing by the filibuster, are giving the Republicans the means of humiliating them. Today, I want to focus on the GOP's role, specifically that voting against raising the debt ceiling is a hostile war-like act. We're so familiar with their war-like hostility, however, it seems like old news. It shouldn't be. The GOP's war-like hostility drives the news. If you do not understand that, you do not understand American politics.

Last night's unanimous vote by the Senate Republicans against raising the debt ceiling (and against funding the government) should be seen in the context of sabotage. The party playing chicken with the full faith and credit of the United States is the same party undermining the national recovery from the covid pandemic, which is the same party tolerating insurgents who nearly brought down the republic, which is the same party eroding the rule of law, which is the same party welcoming interference by Russia, which is … so on and so forth.

The Republicans have a reputation for being anti-government. But the current iteration of the Republican Party is much more than that. It is anti-American. I would normally provide evidence of such a claim, but the evidence to such a claim is all around us. Pointing out that the Republicans are anti-American is like pointing out the sky is blue.

Yet it must be pointed out. The Washington press corps has not figured out, or refuses to figure out, that the GOP does not represent Americans. It represents "real Americans" who do not live in the United States but in a wholly imagined "nation" inside the United States that was given to them by God to rule in His name. The GOP's first loyalty is to this confederacy of the mind and spirit, not to the United States. This is why political sabotage comes so easily.

And this is why Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, is not a hypocrite. He does not represent Americans. He represents "real Americans." When he was in charge, he voted to raise the debt ceiling. Now that he's not, he voted against it. The point isn't about what's good for the Republicans being good for the Democrats. If that were the case, equality would be central to McConnell's thinking. It is not. The point is who's in charge. When the Republicans are, up is up. When the Democrats are, up is down. There's nothing hypocritical about the pursuit of power stripped of all democratic morality.

This point about who's in charge can't be overstated. It's not that McConnell and the Republicans want the United States to default on its debt. That would hurt the very obscenely rich people who are their benefactors. But these very obscenely rich people are nevertheless supportive of the Republican Party's willingness to sabotage the government if sabotaging it helps maintain control of it. So it isn't just an amoral pursuit of power. It's parasitic, too. The confederates don't want to kill off the host nation. They just want to be in charge of it.

This is why I say "war-like." They don't want to go to war, not yet anyway, but they do want to intimidate, bully, harass and terrorize perceived enemies into doing what they want. They cannot get what they want through democratic means, because no majority can be found anywhere in the country that wants what the GOP confederates want. This was the lesson learned after the election of the first Black president. The GOP confederates have since forged a path that's outside the boundaries of democracy, outside the boundaries of the rule of law and outside the boundaries of the republic itself (again, think Russia). The politics of sabotage is the politics of the GOP.

I said the Washington press corps has not figured this out. Fact is, neither have many of the Democrats. Or they refuse to. Joe Manchin and other Democratic conservative cling to the idea of a Republican Party that's loyal to the United States and therefore desires bargaining with. Manchin, but not only Manchin, clings to the belief that the filibuster forces compromise. It does the reverse. As I said last week, the Senate rule is being used to humiliate the Democrats. But a larger question hangs over Joe Manchin and his peers: Why must we compromise with people whose politics push them toward sabotage? Bipartisanship between loyal Americans is difficult enough. Is it even desirable with GOP confederates who stand against America itself?

Last week, Jennifer Rubin wrote about the sinking reputation of the United States Supreme Court. With respect to a new abortion law in Texas, which invalidates Roe v. Wade, the Post columnist said that, "The nub of the problem is not that (or not only that) voters are angry that the court allowed a diabolical and invasive Texas law to go into effect. The problem, rather, is that once the facade of impartiality and nonpartisanship is shattered, it is nearly impossible to get back."

It's an important piece. You should read it. But the assertion that "the facade of impartiality and nonpartisanship" is hard to put back together once it's started coming apart is worth dwelling on. Is it true? Well, I have to repeat myself, to wit: most people most of the time have something better to do than pay attention to politics. 2000's Bush v. Gore should have shattered "the facade" utterly, but didn't. Why? For one thing, 9/11. For another, most people have other things to do.

Three recent polls show the high court's approval rating taking a nosedive. "Just 40 percent of Americans approve of the court, according to the latest Gallup poll," the Associated Press reported. "That's among the lowest it's been since Gallup started asking that question more than 20 years ago. Approval was 49 percent in July." (Such was the occasion for Rubin's piece and other pieces you saw last week.) But each poll can be pointed to as evidence of the nosedive being temporary. Unlike the United States Congress, which has an abysmal reputation, the court's numbers never stay low. They go up a little. Then down a little, or a lot, before returning safely to the mean.

Left to their own devices — which is to say, left to find something better to do than pay attention to politics — most people can be trusted to forget whatever bad thing the court does. (Voters are renowned for their short memories.) What's more, most people tend to agree with Justice Stephen Breyer's rose-tinted view: that the court is an institutional source of liberty. Combined, apathy and myth create conditions in which the court can weather pretty much anything.

But what if most Americans were not left to their own devices. What if a major political party had the incentive to never let them forget? What if a major political party grew hostile toward court myths?

Incentive has existed on the margins of the Democratic Party since at least the moment Mitch McConnell robbed Barack Obama of a justice. Those marginal voices have been growing louder, and hence less marginal, since 2015 with every court-related outrage, particularly the GOP's ramming through of a nominee during an election year, which was the reason given for robbing Barack Obama. (Not to mention expediting Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation before the FBI could thoroughly vet him; not to mention the appointment of three justices in all by a president who colluded with a hostile foreign power to win.)

The Democratic Party's centrists, however, have not felt the same pressure, despite all the outrage over more than half a decade. They have continued to see the utility in respecting the court. Unlike liberals and progressives, centrists have not been moved by the court's approval of the former president's Muslim ban, by the court's gutting of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, by the court's kneecapping of trade unions, by the court's eviction, in effect, of essential workers from their homes and other rulings of factional Democratic interest.

But the Supreme Court's lawless decision to use the "shadow docket" to allow an anti-abortion law in Texas to invalidate half a century of court precedent without a single argument or a single written opinion cuts right through the Democratic Party's respectable white people. It has radicalized those voters who had hoped against hope during more than a half-decade's worth of outrage that Roe would not fall. They see it falling now. Fast. It's open season on the court's legitimacy.

This would explain the court's recent polling slump. If I'm correct about these incentives, we might see its numbers shift profoundly — from a familiar pattern of gentle ups and downs to a new pattern of permanent and painful lows. "I do think there's a sustained campaign to delegitimize the court that has gotten some traction on the left," a big-wheel attorney who often argues before the court told the AP. But it's not the left. This is respectable white people we're talking about.

Let's hope I'm right. If most people most of the time continue to think of the court as an institutional source of liberty, and if most people most of time continue to forget the bad things it does, there's no hope of reforming it, whether that means expanding the number of justices, implementing term limits or something called "jurisdiction stripping." (See the Editorial Board's Chris Sprigman for more.) There would be, therefore, no hope in turning Roe into statutory law. The court would strike it down. The Democrats must beat them to it. Before they can save the village, however, they have to burn it down.

The week began with photographs of white men on horseback cracking whips at Black Haitians at the southern border. The El Paso Times captured images of mounted Border Patrol agents trying to force migrants, carrying food and supplies, back over the Rio Grande into Mexico. This week ended with Joe Biden expressing outrage. "I promise you those people will pay," the president told reporters this morning. "They will be investigated. There will be consequences."

That's good, but the larger problem is that the president keeps accepting the premise of "border security" — an ideologically conservative premise. The first step to reforming the government's attitude and hence policy toward the border is to stop accepting the premise as if the GOP means it. They don't. They don't care about "border security." What they care about is having a tool with which to bully Democratic presidents into doing what they want them to do.

That strategy has been wildly successful. The Democrats have been on their heels since at least the Clinton administration. According to the Editorial Board's Elizabeth F. Cohen, professor of political science at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, so-called border security "is a familiar posture, whether or not immigration reform is on the table. Bill Clinton presided over the creation of a legal architecture leading to mass immigrant incarceration. Barack Obama pushed the limits of the deportation infrastructure that was built in the interim, deporting more people from this country than any president to this day."

Biden has proven progressive in ways a lot of progressives have been delighted to discover. When it comes to immigration and border policy, though, he's in the vein of his former boss. Barack Obama once believed mass deportations would inspire the Republicans to negotiate over comprehensive immgration reform. After many years and many families rent asunder, he came to understand they didn't mean what they said. By the time he realized "border security" meant "don't admit Black and brown people" — by the time he realized "illegal immigrants" meant "Black and brown people are illegal" — it was too late.

And yet the Democrats keep talking about "border security" as if the Republicans really believe it's important. Worse, they keep funding it. Customs and Border Patrol is now the biggest federal law enforcement agency in the United States. Along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the CBP eats up "nearly $20 billion a year, a non-trivial portion of which goes to shadowy private companies like Geo Group and Core Civic for incarceration," according to Elizabeth. With virtually unlimited resources comes incredible and virtually unchecked power. "They decide who gets arrested, who gets hearings, who is deported, and who will be jailed indefinitely. They are huge, awash in cash, poorly supervise and incentivized to be maximally cruel," Elizabeth wrote.

You might think that's an acceptable price to prevent drug and human trafficking, gun-running and other criminal activity. You might think that's an acceptable price to keep Americans safe. Fact is, though, you're getting more security from local police departments than you're getting from America's biggest cop shop. For all the billions spent, for all the advanced technology, and for all the miles of border wall built over 20 years, ICE and CBP "have not reduced crime rates, ended the illegal narcotics trade, prevented the flow and use of deadly weapons, or in any other way made people safer," Elizabeth wrote in April.

What has been accomplished? A huge and lawless bureaucracy. ICE is subject to thousands of sexual assault and harrassment complaints every year. CPB is known for working with armed vigilantes who "patrol" the border. An inspector general report found that American citizens and American journalists were being tracked by CPB. Both agencies served as the former president's "secret police" last year. Elizabeth: "There are many reasons that we find ourselves living with two sprawling immigration police forces that each year encroach further on the basic civil rights and safety of everyone in the US." Me: The more we accept the premise that we need "border security," the more we empower fascists inside the United States government.

Border Patrol's most basic purpose is regulating flows of people in and out of the United States. It can't do its job, though, because its job is impossible. The horsemen incident is a case in point. The pictures we saw showed mounted Border Patrol agents trying to force Haitian migrants back into Mexico. Thing is, they already crossed. They had gone back to Mexico to get food. Video of the horsemen show Haitians just walking around them. It was an exercise invoking images of slave catchers, yes. But it was also an exercise in futility. I mean, more than 10,000 people walked over in broad daylight. The CBP was impotent.

For those wondering if a wall would work, no, it wouldn't. The southern border is nearly 2,000 miles long. Most of it is the Rio Grande. It's subject to seasonal monsoons. That means flooding, major flooding. No sooner does the government put up walls and other barriers than Mother Nature comes along to knock it all down. And if the monsoons don't knock them down, the smugglers will. America's effect at "border security" has been as successful as its war on drugs.

While "border security" isn't attainable (in the way Republicans define it), it might be desirable to try — if the Republicans meant what they said. They don't, though. Every time Barack Obama tried meeting their demands, they created new ones, forcing the former president to keep chasing ever-receding horizons. I don't know what Joe Biden has in mind by putting Haitians on airplanes and sending them back. But if we're ever going to get a Democratic president to change his mind, we have to convince more people that "border security" is a canard.

Let's set aside the distant possibility of the United States government defaulting on its debt. Despite what you are reading and hearing, there is no real chance of that happening. The United States Congress is going to raise the debt ceiling. Whether this game of chicken has any real-world effect — whether it lowers the US rating among crediting agencies, as transpired the last time around — is a different matter.

Make no mistake, though. It's a game of chicken and the Republicans in the United States Senate are winning. I would say, if we're going to be honest with ourselves, that the Republicans are humiliating the Democrats. Democratic allies are laboring mightily to obscure that.

They are pointing the finger at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, accusing him of hypocrisy. When he was in charge, the Senate GOP raised the cap, no questions asked, with the help of the Democrats. Now that he's not, he and all of the Senate Republicans are voting against raising the cap, despite knowing full well that if it isn't lifted, it would mean economic calamity for the country and the world.

Don't be conned by the Democratic partisans, though. McConnell is not a hypocrite. To be a hypocrite, you have to say one thing but mean something else. McConnell means exactly what he says, to wit: There are two standards. One for his party. One for the other. If today one thing works for him, so be it. If tomorrow the same thing doesn't, so be it. Being a hypocrite requires having some degree of dedication to moral consistency. McConnell has no such dedication. Never did.

This is not to praise him, mind you. Elizabeth Warren was entirely correct in asking Wednesday, "Are we hostage to Republicans who are threatening to blow up a part of the economic system because they want to do that for politics?" We should be asking that question. We should be denouncing the GOP for playing chicken with something as important as the full faith and credit of the United States government. But to answer the question: Yes, "we" are hostage to the Republicans.

The Republicans want the cap lifted. They know what the stakes are. They know the Democrats know, too. Failing to lift it is unthinkable. The Republicans also know they aren't going to win in the end. The Democrats can't get 60 voters on account of the GOP filibuster, but they can raise the cap using a process called reconciliation. (That requires a simple majority. Kamala Harris would be the tie-breaker.) There are only so many times they can use reconciliation, though. McConnell may be forcing the Democrats to use them all up before they get their act together to pass the president's big spending bills.

But the Republicans' short-term accomplishment is raking the Democrats over the hot coals of public humiliation. Why do I say that? Warren and the Democrats are not powerless. They could neutralize McConnell's advantage any time they wanted to. They are choosing not to use the power they have. They are instead complaining about the fact that Mitch McConnell is a terrible human being. Blaming him only serves to distract us from the real issue of the debt-ceiling story.

Of course I'm talking about the filibuster. The Senate rule requiring bills to reach 60 votes is why the Republicans are able to jam the Democrats. The Democrats could reform the filibuster any time. It takes 51 votes to change a rule. But a few of the Democrats, namely Joe Manchin, don't want to touch it. They have their reasons, but the outcome of holding on to the rule is standing by while your party is raked over the hot coals of public humiliation. Are "we" hostage to the Republicans? Kinda. Mostly the Democrats are hostage to themselves.

Manchin isn't the only Senate Democrat to stand by the filibuster. He is the most vocal, though, about the need for bipartisanship and about the filibuster forcing it to happen. This has always been nonsense, but the Republicans jamming the Democrats on the debt ceiling using the filibuster proves it. And it proves something else. Why would anyone want bipartisanship with people who not only play chicken with something as important as the full faith and credit of the United States government, but also rake you over the hot coals of public humiliation?

Manchin and the other Democrats who stand by the filibuster as-is seem indifferent to most arguments for reform, but perhaps they'd be more receptive to appeals to their pride: Do we really want to keep surrendering to the hostage takers for the sake of a rule? The answer might be yes, but we won't know until someone asks.

When most people think about "bias" in news coverage, they usually think of some kind of ideological bent, as if the Post, say, is trying to advance some kind of political agenda with its journalism. While this does apply to right-wing outlets, like the Washington Examiner, most of the rest of the press corps isn't ideological as we would normally understand that word.

This doesn't mean there isn't bias, though.

The most prominent bias comes from journalists merely doing their jobs. Choices have to be made. Cover this story, not that story, for this reason, not that reason. In these choices, news outlets reveal their bias. The Times, for instance, is not center-left. It's a publication of the very obscenely rich, that is, the American elite. When it comes to deciding "the news that's fit to print," the elites who work there tend to focus on other elites and what they think — to the exclusion of other points of view, because why be inclusive when you're elite? This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can be, like in the middle of a pandemic.

Elites tend to believe they're elite, because they're elite. They are deserving of wealth and power, in other words. Never mind that most, though not all, elites were born successful, and never mind they were born into eliteness on account of governments favoring their families. This context has serious ramifications with respect to political values. Freedom, for elites, isn't rooted in democracy, community or mutual obligation. Instead, it arises from the absence of coercion, especially by the primary instrument of democracy, community or mutual obligation: government. Choosing for oneself what's good and right — that's freedom. Fine and dandy, except in the middle of a pandemic.

The Washington press corps' presumption that freedom is about choice, not responsibility, is warping our shared understanding of the pandemic. (In this, the Times isn't alone.) On the one hand, the presumption minimizes the damage being done by those who refuse to wear masks or, especially, who refuse to get vaccinated. On the other hand, it gives these people the appearance of pursuing something noble. Instead of being presented as saboteurs, they are presented as individuals fighting for their rights. When they are presented as saboteurs (which I think is accurate), we are told they're a political problem that the president has yet to figure out a way to solve.

But the presumption of freedom as choice does something else. It obscures the lawlessness of GOP leaders and their allies. The press corps has been busy reporting noble individuals fighting nobly for their noble rights. In fact, they have been undermining basic law and order. Texas and Florida have led the way in outlawing mask and vaccine mandates by local officials, especially on school boards. Meanwhile, GOP resistance nationally has sparked a crime wave.

A teacher in California was attacked by a parent over masks. The same thing is playing out in schools across the country. A man was stabbed and a reporter assaulted in Los Angeles during a vaccine protest. An Iowa man was sentenced to a decade in prison over a mask fight. Medical workers are facing more violence and threats of violence. Same thing for flight attendants. (Airlines are now refusing to serve booze, because first-class passengers so often get belligerent.) Elected office holders are receiving record numbers of death threats. A woman attacked a laundry worker in New York City over a request to wear a mask. Employees everywhere are being assaulted for doing their jobs.

According to the Associated Press: "Across the country, anti-vaccine and anti-mask demonstrations are taking scary and violent turns, and educators, medical professionals and public figures have been stunned at the level at which they have been vilified for even stating their opinion. And they have been terrified over how far protesters will go in confronting leaders outside their homes and in their workplaces."

It bears repeating that we are not facing a public health crisis. We have vaccines. They work. They are free. They are available pretty much everywhere now. What's preventing us from ending the pandemic isn't medical. It's behavioral. It's violence! What's driving that is the GOP. What we need is for these people to get in line, for the sake of their freedom and everyone else's. What we need is basic law and order. But the press corps is so focused on freedom as choice, not responsibility, that no one is talking about a violent Republican crime wave. It's almost like it's not a crime — if it's conservative white people doing it.

There's the rub. If Black and brown people were attacking flight attendants and laundry workers and school teachers, we would hear no end from the Washington press corps about threats to basic law and order — and from elected leaders about the need to crack down on crime. Among the news media's presumptions is the one about Black and brown people being violent on account of being Black and brown. Conservative white people aren't "naturally" violent, so when they are, there must be a good reason. Like fighting for their rights!

There is no good reason. There is no reason at all except perhaps refusing to be held accountable to the same standards — the same laws — as Black and brown people are held. Lawlessness shouldn't be a regrettable outcome of liberty. It sure as hell shouldn't be the point.

I am going to follow up on Wednesday's piece about the rhetoric of shut-the-fuck-up by asking a practical question: will it work? I explained the need for it. I explained why. But I didn't explain how. Here's how: authoritarians who desire a hero to save them from democracy will do what they're told, because they are authoritarians.

First, a reminder. Authoritarians are weak. They don't really know what to think. They have been trained since early childhood not to. They were often beaten into accepting as true whatever the leader thinks is true. This leader is a father figure, not necessarily a father, or the father. It's someone of authority who teaches the kids of authoritarians that morality isn't about doing good in the world. It's about obeying.

You might think people who are taught that obedience is the highest good would be ready and willing to fight tooth and nail if and when the leader tells them to. But you have to remember another side of the leader's teachings. Nothing is his fault. He can't be blamed. He's beyond reproach. The leader would not be the leader otherwise. (This is the fundamental source of the authoritarian's frailty.) Being wrong means being humiliated. That's not just unthinkable. That's an offense to God.

So the children of authoritarians are taught a series of closed but mutually reinforcing lessons: that the leader must be trusted above all (morality equals obedience). That the leader is never wrong. That when the leader is wrong, it's not his fault. Most of all, that it's the fault of malevolent forces (Satan, probably) that are always already threatening the authoritarian collective to which all of them belong. An injustice to him is one to all. When the leader is humiliated, stand by your man.

If the leader runs for public office a democratic republic such as the United States, his runs the risk of losing. But the leader can't lose. He's the leader. When he does lose — because he's unqualified or because he's a crank or because, you know, he's an authoritarian — it's not his fault. It's the fault of malevolent forces (Satan, probably) that are always already threatening the authoritarian collective to which all of them belong. When the leader says the election was rigged against him, he's telling supporters it was rigged against them. And here's the part I want you to understand. It's so important, I'm really trying to spell it out: He's telling them something they already believe is true.

Jonathan Bernstein mentioned Wednesday what he calls the GOP's "one-two punch" to demobilize Republican voters. When you say elections are rigged, supporters will probably believe it. And when they believe it, they probably won't think there's much point to voting.

That's right but also slightly wrong. They don't need to be told. They already believe it. Believing it was a precondition of supporting Donald Trump. His humiliation is theirs. His endless lying about it is their endless lying about it. Just as they'd rather give up on democracy than share democracy with people they don't like, they'd rather give up on democratic elections than face the possibility of another defeat.

This is where the new rhetoric comes in. Believe it or not, they want to be told they can shut the fuck up. I know it sounds crazy, but bear in mind all of the above. They already believe the system is rigged against them. They already believe the authoritarian collective to which all of them belong is a victim of malevolent forces. (Satan, probably.) They are acutely aware of their minority status in a democratic republic such as the United States, where the majority prefers democracy. When the majority says you can shut the fuck up, you probably will.

Bear in mind that the authoritarian collective to which all of them belong is premised on a pile of wild, howling lies. (That's what it means to identify as a "real American," also known as God's chosen people.) Democratic elections — or free engagement in the public square — run the risk of more humiliation. Other participants won't swallow all those wild, howling lies. They're going to say you're wrong. That's going to hurt so much, you won't bother doing it again. To be told you can shut the fuck up wouldn't be offensive. It would be a relief.

In closing, I want to say this. We must say they can shut the fuck up. Why? When we didn't, this authoritarian collective, which has always been with us and always will be with us, exploited liberalism's primary weakness: tolerating intolerance. We allowed the authoritarians to hope against hope that maybe democracy wasn't as liberal as they thought it was, that maybe they can make democracy authoritarian once again. The result was the election of an American fascist. We can't let them hope again. We must say they can shut the fuck up.

Larry Elder was the leading GOP candidate in California's recall election Tuesday. The talk-show host lost by a mile. He conceded last night, but not before raising doubts about the election's legitimacy.

As the Editorial Board's Lindsay Beyerstein wrote:

In the post-Trump era, Republican losers follow a simple formula: Cry fraud, file frivolous lawsuits and fundraise off of them. You will lose in court, because there is no fraud, but it doesn't matter because every loss burnishes the GOP's "stabbed in the back" narrative. … It's one more piece of evidence showing that Republicans have given up on elections. It's not a free and fair election if you don't intend to concede if you lose.

In a small way, it was a repeat of 2020. How can we have a democracy without public trust? How can we have public trust when GOP losers foment distrust? Instead of feeling free, fair and full, people like Elder and the former president make democracy feel more like a prison.

I'm nagged by questions, same as you, but I hope to propose here a theory in its infancy. (Maybe you can help. Also: I hope you'll forgive me my vulgarity, but it serves the common good.) I think we need to create a vocabulary designed to exclude people bent on sabotaging the republic to control it. I think we need a rhetoric of shut-the-fuck-up.

First, we should understand that we don't have to accept the premise. What premise? That GOP losers are raising doubts about democracy's legitimacy. (Yes, I'm contradicting myself, but go with it, please.) When GOP losers like Larry Elder, or the former president, accuse election officials of rigging elections, we don't have to accept the premise. Instead, we can present our own — that he's conceding defeat.

That might sound strange. After all, a candidate concedes when a candidate actually concedes — when they say the words, "I'm done." But there are no rules here. Democracy empowers us to get creative. When a GOP loser tells supporters they should doubt the results of the election, we don't have to accept that they're raising doubts about the election. We can instead say they are giving up, not only on the election, but on America. When GOP losers give up on America, there's nothing saying that America should keep working on a relationship that's clearly not getting better. America should give up on them.

There's also nothing saying that we must give them a second chance. Republican losers have the right to tell their supporters to distrust democracy's outcomes. The rest of us have the right to conclude that we should never trust that candidate with power. Ever. The same goes for partisan allies. Some lines can't be crossed. If they are, there's no coming back. If a Republican loser, like the former president, attempts a comeback, we have the right to declare that his opinions are forfeit.

He can shut the fuck up.

Again, the same goes for partisan allies. For instance, Marco Rubio. The United States senator from Florida issued a letter expressing "grave concern" about the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to the Post, Mike Milley was so concerned Donald Trump would start a war with China he contacted his counterpart there to make sure it didn't happen. What Milley did is extraordinary. Everyone committed to the republic should and will be giving his actions a lot of hard thought. But Marco Rubio voted to acquit the former president of treason.

He can shut the fuck up.

Other Republicans and their allies in the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, are expressing a range of opinion about Milley's questionable conduct, everything from "grave concern" to allegations of treason. But these partisans want us to take their views seriously, as if they mean anything they say, as if they are dedicated to democracy, as if insubordination were truly offensive to them, as if they did not actually support the former president's attempted coup.

They can shut the fuck up.

We might look to Mike Milley as the inspiration of the rhetoric I'm talking about. According to Michael Bender, Milley resisted Trump's call to use military force to suppress demonstrations protesting the murder of George Floyd. "That's how you're supposed to handle these people," Bender said the former president said. "Crack their skulls! … Shoot them in the leg — or maybe the foot. But be hard on them!"

Stephen Miller, Trump's adviser, told Milley he should use military force. "The cities are burning," Bender said Miller said. But Miller wanted cities to burn. He wanted TV images of the military cracking down of Americans peacefully exercising their right to protest. Milley understood that. So he turned to Miller to say what needed saying.

"Shut the fuck up, Stephen."

I believe Mike Milley would resign if the current president asked him to. That's what soldiers do. I also believe Milley — and perhaps Joe Biden, too — knows who should rightfully sit in judgment. Precisely, who should not. It's not people who sabotage the republic to control it. It's not people who aid and abet sedition, betrayal and treason. They have given up on America. America should give up on them in return.