Why Do Republicans Deserve to Be Heard At All?

During the final stages of last fall’s presidential campaign, as weary but hopeful Americans began to contemplate the possibility of a Biden victory, there were a lot of cautionary voices warning that, as welcome as the return of rational, adult supervision would be, the notion of a full reversion to pre-Trump, pre-COVID “normalcy” was a pipe dream. (I was one of them.)

That warning is very much proving correct. We are still wrestling not only with the pandemic, of course, but also with permanent changes to the American way of politics wrought by the events of the last four years.

But in one area, there has been a return to so-called “normalcy,” one that is being eagerly embraced by the Republican Party, and that is the notion that the GOP is a reasonable political party that acts in good faith and deserves to be heard.

News flash, folks. It ain’t. Not by a long shot.

Call me naïve, but for some reason I foolishly thought that after Trump was unceremoniously evicted from office, and competent grown-ups who had not sworn allegiance to Evil™ once again took charge of the federal government, there would be a wholesale repudiation of the Republican Party as a force that had any credible claim to national leadership. Need I count the reasons why? (I refer you to the previous two hundred and…