Counting my home in East Tennessee and a small summer cabin in Wisconsin in an old pasture where my Mom grew up, I have four Senators and two Congressional Representatives. By extension I have skin in the game in one swing state (where I wish I could vote) and another state that one day might possibly be in play, like Georgia.
Five of my six representatives started their day on January 6 in the “sedition caucus” — proposing to invalidate the election and install Trump in power. My Senators were in the group that backed off by the end of the day, after the mob action part of the coup attempt. Thus the followed Pence instead of drinking the poison down to its dregs alongside Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley.
One of those three, Bill Hagerty, is newly sitting in a seat vacated by Lamar Alexander, who if he were still around might be in the discussion about occasionally voting with Democrats, somewhat like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney.
I wrote to Hagerty and thought I might share it here. I’m not sure if I'll continue engaging with him, but I do think that people in swing states sometimes have perspectives slightly different from the punditocracies on the coasts, where people are less likely to interact with Trump voters on a daily basis.
Dear Senator Hagerty,
For four years, I have been writing to Lamar Alexander to urge him to defend our the people of our country and the rule of law-- against an enemy which is more or less your party leadership. I asked him if he wanted to be remembered like John McCain (whom I rarely agreed with but who does deserve respect) or to be forgotten as just another one of Trump’s lapdogs. Before this I wrote in the same vein to Bob Corker.
In other words, I understand that Republicans are not all unpatriotic traitors, and I try to convince my friends on the left of this same point — not to be so indiscriminately hateful and dismissive, but rather to see that there is considerable goodwill and complexity among many rank and file Republicans, as well as some subset of elected Republicans. As Neil Young said a couple of days ago, a lot of the Republican base, even extending to some among the protestors last week, deserve some degree of empathy because they have been deliberately misguided.
But Trump has for a long time been beyond the pale. You are surely well-informed enough to know that. And insurrectionist lynch mobs are further beyond the pale. It it is outrageous that anyone in the Senate is giving them cover. A commentator yesterday said it well: both sides of our country may each think that the other side is floating on a river of false information, but one rule of thumb for discerning which side is persuasive is as follows: if you look around and your side has a large contingent of Nazis, you're likely on the wrong side.
Yet today Republicans are on TV defending an attempted coup led by Trump and outright Nazis! If this is was not impeachable, then nothing can ever possibly be impeachable.
Long ago I gave up on writing to Marsha Blackburn, because I suspect that she, too, is beyond the pale and appealing to her morality and reason would be a waste of time. But I don’t know you well; your legacy is open-ended. I want to address you with respect and give you the chance to keep this respect. I believe the future of our country depends on rebuilding this sort of respect.
But– it should be obvious– this simply cannot happen if there are no consequences for the insurrectionists, nor for the flagrantly criminal behaviors of Trump and his close allies.
Nor can calling for "unity" simply mean lobbying Biden to be even more centrist (center-right in global terms!) than he already is. Obviously this is a cynical argument made in bad faith, as long as it does not come with serious changes in behavior on the far right.
Please do the right thing. I do thank you from backing away from the “sedition caucus” group lead by Hawley and Cruz. But this is not anywhere near enough by itself. Please break unambiguously with the Trumpist wing of your party and respect your oath of office.
This is an astonishingly small ask--- that I am simply encouraging you not to be in open rebellion against the rule of law, thus enabling someone who clearly wants to be a dictator along the lines of Putin. We deserve to ask you for a lot more than this!
But please at least do this little bit in the current crisis.
Sincerely,
Mark Hulsether
MBE standard notice: The time I spend on this blog is not in addition to a Twitter and FaceBook presence, but an alternative to it. If you think anything here merits wider circulation, this will probably only happen if you circulate it.