Donald Trump was a liar long before the press finally called him one. An authoritarian and a fascist, too. The same applies to “traitor”. He is one and has been one all along. Ditto the rest of the GOP. What, after all, is a pro-Putin Republican if not a traitor by another name? Calling them traitors isn’t political. It’s just accurate. As with Trump, some people, we must take at their word. And Trump, from the moment he pranced onto our political stage, has always been an unabashed traitor.

Some day, we’ll get to point a laser beam at the news media and take them to task for screwing up the story of their lifetimes. Blinded by the cynical conservative canard that “both sides do it“, our news media has equated political behavior (the Democrats) with criminal behavior toward a political end (the Republicans). The two may seem alike, but they absolutely aren’t. This has blinded our press to the dangers Donald Trump posed from the start.

Whether or not you agree or disagree with Trump and the GOP, they want to alter America in fundamental ways. For starters, they want to strip the rights from a whole lot of us. The majority of us, in fact. And they want to significantly alter our friends v foe balance on the world stage. That is, they want to abandon our friends and allies and embrace our enemies and foes.

They carry out this threat to our sovereignty via word and deed. Repeated words and deeds actually.

Look, facts can be divorced from politics. For example: the world is round (though not everyone agrees). Those are the Trumpanistas – the flat earthers who don’t care about reality or anything in it. They want the world the way they want it – white, male and Christian. They refuse to abide by anything else.

Add Right Wing Money to finance whatever it takes. A SCOTUS for instance. The RW Money’s always believed it could either control Trump or mitigate any damage Trump might cause to Trump and Trump alone. They were wrong.

The Kochs and Mercers – for example – have curious ties to Russia. That made it easy when Russia seduced the Right Wing political class both literally and in a criminal sense. Maria Butina won medals upon returning to Russia – medals she richly deserved for having seduced not just a couple of dumbass political operatives, but the NRA and most of the Republican Party, too.

For whatever reason, Trump and then nearly the entire GOP got sucked into a conspiracy to end American democracy – an absolute violation of their oaths of office. They have conspired with enemies both foreign AND domestic.

The GOP knew before Trump even took office that Putin likely owned Trump. They did nothing to investigate it or challenge it or stop it.

On June 25, 2016, per the Washington Post (reporting almost a year later on May 17, 2017 in a piece by Adam Entous), former Speaker Of The House (then just Representative) Kevin McCarthy exited a meeting wherein the intelligence community had briefed members of Congress about Putin’s ongoing attempts to undermine Ukraine’s fragile, new democracy. From there, McCarthy strode directly into a meeting of GOP leaders.

The first thing McCarthy said upon entering: “There’s two people I think Putin pays – Rohrbacher and Trump – swear to God!”

The phone call was recorded by the way – and the recording was played for reporter Entous).

Now, the thing you have to know is, when McCarthy said this Everyone in the room KNEW that, yeah – California Representative Dana Rohrbacher was “Putin’s Favorite Congressman”. Deep, deep, DEEP in Putin’s pocket.

Think they’d nominate Dana to be POTUS? If Rohrbacher HAD been so ridiculously ambitious, do you suppose the GOP would have primaried him as being “Moscow Dana”?

Rohrbacher’s association with Putin wasn’t a good thing. It was a bad thing. And McCarthy – part of the GOP’s leadership – had just associated this bad thing with their about-to-be presidential nominee.

You’d think someone might say something. Even a “Whaaaaaaat? Kevin, dude, are you SURE about that?” No one challenged the contention. No one questioned its veracity.

No one said “Holy shit – somebody, get the FBI on their phone!”

Instead, the GOP leadership did the exact opposite. They actively chose to keep this terrible secret A SECRET. That was their CHOICE in that moment.

We know it was.

It was RECORDED.

Suddenly then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan stepped forward and asserted what Republicans call “leadership”. Ryan told them they were not going to let the subject leave the room. Their secrecy was going to be their bond. You’d swear Ryan was a mob boss instead of Speaker Of The House. “No leaks,” he said, “This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

A real family… of traitors.

Again, this is per the Washington Post; I am not pulling it from my bottom.

In hindsight what was treasonous then has become more so. Monstrously more so.

This monster has been staring democracy-loving Americans in the face for a long while now. A few saw it early on. It’s never fun to be ahead of a curve. Especially when fascists are part of it.

But, here we are. We’ve bought into the very real FACT that the Republican Party is now a stronghold of fascist and authoritarian values. No one questions that.

That wasn’t true 5 years ago.

“Traitors” is coming next. I’m not even really ahead of the curve anymore.