Donald Trump is a traitor. So is virtually the entire Republican Party. There. I said it. More to the point? I absolutely mean it. Donald Trump and virtually everyone in the Republican Party – because either they are one or they stand with one – is a TRAITOR. Not a hyperbolic traitor, but a literal one. And because that is demonstrably true, we must stop thinking of Trump and the GOP in any other terms. Politicians? No. Traitors. See the difference?

I’m old enough to remember when calling Trump or any Republican fascist a “fascist” would result in mockery. I’m also old enough to remember how long it took our news media to call Trump the thing he always was: a liar.

Consider both.

The news media took over a year to agree within its own corporate head that a liar was a liar. And that they could call him one.

Only people with their hair on fire – like me – spewed words like “Nazi” and “fascist” and even “authoritarian”. Well, I am now bald and even the news media lets anyone and everyone call Trump – or any Republican – a fascist, a Nazi or an authoritarian. Because it is true.

Watch this space. The word “TRAITOR” is next. And it’s going to arrive like an extinction-causing meteor. There will be extinction in “traitor’s” aftermath. Like the dinosaurs they are, the Republicans will almost entirely go extinct.

As this blog has shouted from all available rooftops, the Republican Party KNEW for a fact – before they nominated Trump in 2016 – that Vladimir Putin had likely compromised him. Some of the GOP leadership knew more than others, but they swore the whole group to secrecy about the fact that ‘Putin [paid] Rohrbacher and Trump.” As former Speaker Of The House Kevin McCarthy put it on June 25, 2016, after saying it and icing that cake: “Swear to God!”

It’s a funny god Republicans swear to, isn’t it? And such a treasonous one!

Our news media has noted Trump’s strange hold on the GOP, and asked about it. But, even stranger, our news media never seem to want anyone to actually answer their question! Yes, sure, Trump’s base plays a very large part. But Trump didn’t have that base at the beginning.

Though our news media didn’t understand it (still doesn’t!), Trump and the GOP absolutely did: take Russia out of the 2016 equation and Trump does not win the election. That Russia played ANY part in the 2016 election demands immediate investigation.

But, look at what our news media already accept as “normal”. They already report how “Russia tried to help Trump in 2016”. Wait, whaaaaat? Did Trump know anything about it? Yes – he did! Per his own party, Putin paid Trump!

Remember the day after Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 – when he famously got up on his hind legs and brayed “Russia, if you’re listening…!”? The entire GOP leadership team KNEW that, yes, Russia was listening because Trump was a Russian intelligence asset.

So was Paul Manafort – Trump’s campaign manager. You know, the guy who handed Russian Military Intelligence officer Oleg Deripaska proprietary polling data for Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. No one expected Trump to win Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania. Trump won those three key states by a combined 70,000 votes.

We also know what happened to that proprietary polling data. It became weaponized Facebook ads aimed at Black Democratic voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The goal – convince them just enough that Hilary Clinton was a closet racist, so stay home and don’t vote at all! Voter suppression delivered via a hostile foreign enemy’s military intelligence?

Please, explain to me how that isn’t illegal a thousand different ways.

Take Oleg Deripaska out of the 2016 equation. Remove Paul Manafort. Lose the proprietary polling data. Hell, remove Russia entirely as I proposed and Donald Trump never gets surprised on election night by winning an election he wanted to lose!

Problem is, once you commit treason, those with whom you’ve conspired own you. Example: because Putin paid Trump, Putin owned Trump.

Because the GOP knew Putin paid Trump and did nothing about it? They became equally complicit in Trump’s treachery. That’s the hold Trump always had over the Republican Party’s leadership. At any time, any of them – or any of the underlings lower down the food chain – could have stepped forward and stopped it.

See something, say something. See something and say nothing? We have to ask why?

The GOP has spent the entire Trump era seeing something and saying nothing. The reason: treason.

Our news media got used to calling Trump and his acolytes “liars”. They’ve started to enjoy calling them “authoritarians” and “fascists”.

Being pack animals, once they adapt to “traitor!”, they’ll enjoy using that word just like they enjoy using the others. But, the problem is, as with “liar”, the news media will take too long getting there.

Imagine if, when Adam Entous first reported on that June 25, 2016 meeting in May 2017 in the Washington Post, a few journalists had been more intrepid! A few reporters did confront McCarthy with his words. What did McCarthy say? “I was joking!”

What did our news media do? They accepted that!

In hindsight – that was bloody stupid. That not a single journalist has revisited this moment in the collective narrative is a stunning example of just how inadequate our news media is. They still insist on giving Trump every benefit of every doubt they can think of.

Because… he’s Trump.

It’s the damnedest thing. But, this thing has reached and now passed it’s “due date”. It takes a lot of truth to overwhelm our news media into reporting it. Eventually, the reported Trump to be the liar he is.

They eventually reported on Trump the fascist.

Today, Putin murdered Alexei Navalny, the genuinely heroic Russian opposition leader imprisoned in Siberia. Putin so feared Navalny – and Navalny’s hold on Russia’s imagination – that he silenced him, sent him to Siberia and killed him there (yeah, yeah – there’s no proof that’s what happened, but the fact is – that is what happened). Putin’s fatal mistake was making Navalny a full on martyr.

Navalny-the-Martyr will haunt Putin far more than Navalny the opposition leader ever did. And that’s just inside Russia.

Outside Russia, Putin murdering Navalny will be felt even more profoundly. Europe will feel it – especially in those places where right wing actors threaten democracy. Here, in America, the Republican Party will be caught with its pants down – bending over for Putin yet again.

How can there even be a “Pro-Putin Republican”? The GOP itself knew that was a bad thing to be. Remember June 25, 2016? Kevin McCarthy described Dana Rohrbacher as a “Pro-Putin Republican”. Everyone in the room agreed – Rohrbacher – because he took Putin’s money – was “Putin’s favorite Congressman”.

McCarthy compared Trump to Rohrbacher. That wasn’t a positive because they didn’t want that comparison being made anywhere outside that room. And, so, they all agreed to be “a family” and keep that fact – that “Putin paid Rohrbacher and Trump” (emphasis mine) a secret.

People who do things like that are stone cold traitors. There’s simply no other word to adequately or accurately describe them.

Donald Trump is a traitor and treason runs all the way down to the local level. Traitors are traitors. If you stand with traitors, you become a traitor, too.

It’s one of the undeniable laws of nature and treason

Donald Trump is a traitor. So is the GOP.

And it’s time we spoke it out loud and often. In full voice from every rooftop we can.

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